The dawn sea was dark and serene. Small waves surged gently at the shore, producing a faint and soothing sound. It went back in and out bringing the white bubble and leaving small animals crawling back inside the wet sand.

A few feet from the line where waves kissed the shore, people gathered in a silent crowd. Big camera jib, lightning kit and other shooting equipment could be seen around. In the middle of it was a girl in a long white dress. Her hair flaunted from the cold spring breeze.

A man in his dark blue shirt stood by the edge of the crowd, silently monitoring the activity. He kept watching as the girl moved slowly toward the sea and finally turned around with a gentle and shy smile. At that, the director shouted the cue to stop the filming, and some staffs ran to the girl.

The man smiled satisfyingly, turning to his subordinates standing beside him.

“Then, I’ll leave it to you for the rest of the filming.”

The taller man nodded firmly, two hands clasped tight in front of his lower body.

“Yes, Gwanjang-nim. I will work hard to finish everything well. We will report to you as soon as we wrap it up.”

 “Do well! I’m sorry I get to leave first,” he said, taking a look at his subordinates. Exhaustion was evident on their faces. The black shadow hanging under their eyes and their shirts that had looked crumpled were just one of few signs.

“It’s alright, Gwanjang-nim. We are the one who is thankful you even stayed until this hour. It’s your day off and your mother’s birthday though.”

“That’s right, Gwanjang-nim. Thank you for coming down here,” one of the female staffs chimed in.

It was making him laughed.

“What are you saying, this is my job. You guys really, doing the sweet talk to me won’t make a change in your bonus. Do that to the chairman.”

They burst laughing along.

“Then, I’ll get going.”

He gave every one of them a pat on the back before he bid them goodbye.

"Ne, Gwanjangnim, see you in the office tomorrow."

And off he went looking for a cab.

.

“Be careful on your way,” the older woman said, patting the younger one on the upper arm.

“Yes, Mom, you can go inside now. It’s cold out here.”

She nodded, rushing her daughter inside the waiting cab.

“I get it. Also, Chaewon-ah, don’t forget your appointment for the next Sunday, okay? You won’t make me lose my face in front of my colleague, will you?”

The reflection in her eyes change for a second, but as soon as she felt the emotion creeping up, she blinked quickly.

“I’ll call you later. I’m going.”

She purposely didn’t give the answer that the older woman wanted. There was no use telling an empty promise she would never keep, both of them were aware of that. So, with a smile she tried so hard to draw, she told the driver to start moving.

The woman left smiled eerily. She knew she would never have a ‘no’ as an answer, especially not from her daughter.

.

The man was running through the lengthy platforms of the railway station. The shirt he wore started to get sticky in the back from his sweat. He took a peek at the watch in his left wrist and cursed silently as he got to see where the hour hands rested on.

Damn, two minutes!

He sprinted even faster, tossing apologies left and right as his shoulders bumped into a few officers who were in the middle of completing their morning chores. He run and run, eyes busily scanning the area, and finally he was able to pull a breath of relief as the platform he was looking for appeared before his eyes.

Right after he stepped his feet inside the carriage, the doors were closed automatically and departure announcement was heard all through the train. He turned to look outside the door and saw the station slowly fell behind as the train started moving. He took a proper breath this time, noting mentally that the next time he visited Busan, he should never take the same cab he took earlier.

The carriage where he stood at the moment was almost empty. From his place, he could make out six heads occupying the seats. Two of them were women, and the rests were men. He fished into the pocket of the suit hanging in his hand, taking out the ticket he had put inside before. Then he began to stroll, flicking through the numbers sticking on the steel wall of the carriage.

Seat 7C.

One thing he learned about morning train was it would always be kind of vacant, except on national holidays. There were not much people who would bother getting up at dawn to catch the 5am ride unless they had something important to do. Knowing the fact, he had wished to spend the ride alone, having both seats for his own without a seatmate. But, that wish flew away instantly as he landed his eyes on the supposed seat. A young woman in a cream sweater had taken the 7D seat next to the window. She was gazing out the glass material, into the darkness of dawn that had slowly shown a tinge of blue. Next to her, on the seat that was supposed to be his, a brown handbag was placed.

The woman sensed his look that fell on the top of her head and turned around to find him staring. He gave her a small nod and a gesture to show that he was the owner of the seat beside her. Her round eyes grew larger from the embarrassment, and she quickly nodded back, taking the bag and putting it on her lap.

“I’m sorry. I thought this was unoccupied,” she apologized.

His reply came with a friendly smile as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit, his disappointment brushed off instantaneously. Well, he thought, expectations were not always meant to be fulfilled.

“It’s alright,” he told her.

She gave him another apologetic nod before going back to her initial activity, staring again outside the window, to the passing buildings and scenery. Her mind was agitated, thinking back at her mother’s words as she watched her leave earlier. Which weapon would she use this time to make her surrender?

Thirty minutes into the train ride, the sun was set out peeking slowly behind the whitish veil of clouds. The spring sky started to show its color, a shade of bright and clean blue. In between her troubling thoughts, the random realization that she had started her day preceding the sun produced a small smile on her lips. It was nothing special, but also not something she could experience everyday.

Yes, what am I doing on such a beautiful morning?

She reached inside her hand bag and took out a small book in a green color cover. It was a good decision, she thought, to bring that book. At least she had something use as a distraction.

Beside her, her seatmate was sleeping soundly.

.

The man roused from his sleep. The bright ray of the morning sun fell right in his face. Wrinkles appeared in his forehead, between his eyebrows as he tried to open his eyes. When he finally succeeded, it took him a few seconds to gain his consciousness completely.

It was six past thirty as shown in his watch. The owner of the seat next to him was nowhere to be seen. It was not empty though, as a handbag and a green colored book were sprawled on top of the padded stool.

Restroom, his mind suggested.

Sure enough, she showed up not too long after that from the direction of the passenger’s restroom with traces of water on her face and hands. He stood aside at once to let her get into her seat and she offered him a grateful smile for the considerate act. She collected her stuffs and sat comfortably, he followed after her.

He was not purposely looking but in those small seats, it was hard to not notice the things that she did. She was pulling the folded table opened as a place to put the green book he saw earlier, and the letters printed on the cover were lucid enough for him to read.

Do Jong Hwan.

The name felt kind of familiar that he suddenly felt itchy on the tongue, except he couldn’t remember where did he ever heard or read of it. She was flipping the book opened, to the latest page she just read, and out of curiosity he took a peek. There, in that white sheet were printed long lines of stanza that formed a poem. The last line he could capture clearly and recited silently inside his head.

I want to be overwhelmed by love.

A love that’s blinding in its brilliance, a love that makes the heart thud to a frantic pitch so high it shudders to a stop—that’s the kind of love I want to kneel before.

And on my way to meet this love, I’ll be crying tears of ice.

As he finished the last word, his lips curled into a sneer. He himself was never an avid reader of anything, more so poetry. The only experience he had regarding the form of literature went far back to his school days. Hence, it was strange of him to be feeling a kind of connection to such name that was silly enough to want to cry tears of ice out of love. Right, maybe he was one of poets whose poems he had to remember for the literature class.

Busy distracted by his own thoughts, he realized it a bit too late that his internal organ was twisting until it stung. It downed to him that he had not feed his self for the last twelve hours. He looked around but did not find any hint of the thing he was looking for.

With some caution, he tapped his seatmate by the hand. She was immersed in her reading that it startled her until she turned to him with a sharp look. Her round eyes were piercing at him in a mix of daze and confusion.

“I’m sorry, have you seen the food cart around here?” he asked.

Her expression softened as she relaxed a bit, opened forming a small round shape of ‘o’ letter.

“Oh, it passed by around twenty minutes ago,” she answered. Her right hand unconsciously shifted the nape of her neck, without some reasons, feeling uncomfortable.

“I see then. Thank you.”

Her shoulder length hair swayed as she nodded at him before going back to her reading. But, it was only a few seconds until he made a contact again by the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry I keep interrupting your reading, but could you keep a watch at my stuff here?” he pointed at the backpack he had put between his feet. The security on KTX was always tight but he brought some important papers inside the backpack, it didn’t feel right just to leave it there. Who knew what could happen.

“I’m going to look for the food cart,” he added further.

It didn’t take even more than two seconds for her to give an approval. He smiled and rose up from his seat, thanking her in the way.

After asking one of the officers on duty, he found the food cart three cars away from his own carriage. He wanted to get some coffee but looking at his gastric acting up, he bought mineral water instead and some bun breads. He remembered his seat mate and it didn’t feel right to be the one eating while he had asked her for favor. He took a look at the choice of beverages available and decided on banana milk since she didn’t appear to be someone who would appreciate coke or energy drink for breakfast.

When he got back to his seat, she was in the middle of putting her book inside the handbag. She looked up and found him putting a bottle of milk and bread in the folded table in front of her. She raised her eyebrows, questioning.

“Please take these as a small token of gratitude,” he told her.

Maybe he was wrong in his attempt to read the look in her eyes, but for a second, he thought she looked troubled. But, then she nodded at him, the corners of her lips turned up into a small smile.

“Thank you for these.”

He smiled back at her and settled down on his seat. Opening the folded table in front of him, he put his share there and proceeded to eat. The first sip of water that he swallowed made a painful hit inside his stomach. He knew he should have taken a better care of his self, but his work environment sometimes made it hard to eat on time.

He hissed quietly, just not quiet enough to go unnoticed by his seatmate.

“Gastric pain?” her question was conveyed softly, finding him scowling.

He moved his head up and down quickly, eyes closing and jaw tightening from the effort to bear the pain.

She produced a small pouch from her handbag. It was full with packs of different medicine. She read through them and finally tore a small pack of tablet apart.

“Here, drink this.”

He appeared to be really in pain that she helped to take the tablet out of the blister pack and put it inside his hand. He needed to grit his teeth to force his eyes opened. His hold on the water bottle was extremely tight, it almost crushed the thing. He swallowed the medicine and closed his eyes again, leaning in to his seat.

“Thank you very much.”

He was saying those words again for the nth time that day.

“It will take a while until it starts working,” she told him, “just take your time to rest and when the pain lessens, do eat something.”

After another words of gratitude from him, silence fell between them. She glanced on him once or thrice and after making sure his facial expression had gotten better, she stopped doing that and relaxed on her seat.

Again, she stared outside the window. The view outside showed they were getting closer to Seoul. The sky was really bright and it reminded her that the new batch of spring flowers would come to her shop today. She smiled to herself, wishing for a nice day ahead.

.

Author's Note:

Finally, I have the time to edit and post this. The idea just popped inside my head one day and I wrote it down. It took a long time to finally made my decision to post this story here because I still have one on-going story of Chaeki. I have rough drafts of this story, how it will develop and how it will end, I have it all written down, but I won't be able to update both stories quickly. For that, I apologize in advance, there are many things going on in real life and I'm trying to sort it all out.

Joongki here in this story is someone who works as a creative director of an advertisement company, while Chaewon is a florist. To be honest, I really have no experience with both occupation, other than I like flowers and sometimes I went to florists to buy some flowers. I'm working hard doing my research about both occupations, so if any of you have some knowledge regarding it, I will be glad if you share it with me.

Anyway, this is just a short "appetizer", a prelude to show you all how it started and how they met. Do leave me your thoughts on the comment section.

Credit : the verses written up there is a part of a poem of Do Jong Hwan from his essay titled Maybe Someday You Will Come to This Forest. I found the English translation on http://alighthouseofwords.tumblr.com/post/95896774255/music-the-kind-thats-so-alluring-it-moves

*Gwanjangnim : director