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Tao's POV

I stared down at the piece of paper I held in my hands, the same ripped one I had taken from my notebook two days ago. There was a number on it, scribbled with messy hand writing I didn't think would ever belong to me at all. But I was lucky, I was saved, by the same person who this number belonged to.

Moon Hani. Written right above the number in the same hand writing, and I found my lips involuntarily curving up to release an excited smile. I pushed the paper away from my face, and my passionate eyes came to see the exact same person I had been searching for all along.

She was sighing through her nose, it seems, bending down to fix the trash bags she had in her hands to dump inside the can right beside her. She and I, we were worlds apart, but at the same time, we weren't, at least not this time. I curled my fist around the paper and stuffed it inside the inner pocket of the long, elegant jacket I was wearing. I was bestowed with a wealthy family, as if it was a silent apology for the horribleness I endured in the past three hundred years, as if money could ever be something you’d give someone to the wounded.

But I wasn't complaining.

It was money that made it possible to find her, it was that exact materialistic thing that made me able to stand in front of her work job, watching her with utter affection I wasn't able to display to any of the new people that have ventured inside my life after I was freed.

I cocked my head to the side while watching her, a few meters away. It had been such a long time ago that I was standing in front of her like that, without having to visualize her in my head or wonder whom the face that appeared in my mind belonged to. My heart did a weird gesture in my chest as I stared at her long, not moving an inch closer, my expensive shoes drawing invisible circles on the ground I was standing on. I realized I missed her, I realized that I adored her, and I realized that now, with her closer to me, I could understand why I had felt like a piece of me was always missing.

She was that piece that I spent my human years wondering what it was.

She raised from her bent and wiped her dirty hands on the white apron she was wrapping around her lean waist, after that wiping her forehead clean of sweat. She was working at a café so that she can be more dependent on herself rather than her mother’s money, even though knowing the lady, she’d have already requested to pay off her college fees.

But Hani was stubborn, I knew that for sure. She’d most likely want to work by herself to at least pay the half on her own, and that was amazing in itself.

I saw her raising her hair in a high ponytail so it won't stick to her sweaty neck. She dyed it blonde, it seems, as it wasn't the dark brown hair I imagined in my head with the small memories I still had for her. It suited her more than brown, it made her stand out, it made her beautiful, its bright color reflecting the bright sun she obtained within her.

A small body, holding warmth and light as the sun.

She turned around to go back inside her workplace, when I found my legs moving forward, my mouth spreading open to call her out.

“Moon Hani.”

She turned to see who called her full name, eyes flashing with curiosity and wonder, when those beady jewels fell over my own eyes.

For a whole second, we stared at each other, my heart doing a wide range of flip-flops inside me and my entire body turning clammy, while all she did was stare, confusion swarming inside her delicate eyes.

Then, they widened.

It was like time had its own way to help me, as the entire thing appeared as if we two were frozen in time, just locking our eyes together, and wishing for the other to move a bit closer.

Those eyes of hers were suddenly b with tears, and they rolled over her flushed cheeks (from exhaustion, because working takes a toll on our bodies) after that, she was running towards me, disclosing the apron around her with rushed fingers and throwing it away, assumingely not wanting to dirty my clothes.

We were in each other's embrace in no second, and she was gripping on me so hard, so tightly, as if fearing the weakest of movements could make me disappear, vanish from her eyes. I didn't mind her grip, because I was hugging her just as tightly. Actually, I picked her up from the ground, and she let out a shaky chuckle, her warm tears wetting my clothed shoulders.

“That's really you, right? I’m not imagining you standing outside my café after two long years filled with illusion of hoping you’d remember me somehow, right?”

“Right, Hani, I’m here. I’m Tao, and I’m here,” I squeezed her harder, reassuring her of my real identity, and that I wasn't an entity that appeared in front of her out of hope, or prayers, or whatever she did to wish for our return.

“Oh God,” she mumbled, breaking into another round of tears, her whole body shaking in my arms, and her arms around my neck squeezing, her chin digging through my flesh although the pain was nothing compared with how happy I was making her feel. “Oh God.” She repeated, still in disbelief.

“Sorry you had to wait for two years,” I whispered in her ears, burying my nose in her neck and taking a whiff of her coffee filled odor mixed with a soft sprinkle of the same perfume she used to use before, when we were still warriors. My heart swelled in nostalgia, and I found my own eyes b with tears. Mine, thankfully, didn't fall.

She let go of me hastily at that, and opted to cup my face instead. Her nimble thumbs drawing symbols in my skin, and her eyes growing red, the same pair of eyes that I kept dreaming of. She had a smile on, and that made me burst with joy.

“It's fine now,” she told me heavily, “You’re here now. Two years are better than eternity.”

“I have a surprise for you,” I told her after a few seconds of grinning at each other, and her eyes widened for a fraction of a second, before turning excited. It looked like she already knew what I was going to show her, and I grinned more.

“Where is that surprise?”

I gave her my back after her question, placing my arms on my hips and looking backwards at the hill that blocked my vision from what was behind it. I said in a loud voice.

“Okay guys, you can come out now. My turn has finished.”

After that, a group of men came hopping over the hill and walked closer to us. They all had stupid full-smiles on their faces, and I rolled my eyes. I just wished I hadn't looked as stupid as they were all being. I heard Hani taking a deep hitch from the back of , before breaking into another tearful gasp.

I looked back at her to find her clasping her hands over , and I smiled automatically. She was happy, I could tell.

“Hello, Hani. I don't stutter anymore,” Chanyeol hyung said with a soft smile on his face, raising his five fingers all up as if waiting for a high-five or something. He came forward