Minho looked different. Perhaps if she hadn’t tried to hold on to the bits of him she could barely recall throughout the past decade, she wouldn’t have noticed him so fluently.

But she did, she couldn’t have missed it.

The years apart served him well, new stories shaded faint lines in the crease of his fervid eyes, mature age complimented his handsome face pleasantly. Yet the man stilled before her was the same one, the same Minho, the one with the heart shaped pout, sharp cheeks and sunny skin.

“Hey.” She breathed out an almost whisper, blinking in haste at how taken aback she sounded.

A slow smile curved the corners of his lips, rasping his greeting just as quietly, “Hey.”

Of course, he sounded just the same but it had been too long. The familiarity she grew accustomed to when she used to hear it in forms of sweet nothings back when they were eighteen crashed into her without a warning. It hurt to breathe.

“Seunghoonie told me you were coming, I didn’t expect to see you here though.” She fiddled the edges of her chiffon shawl, adjusting the material over her bare shoulders.

His gaze fell onto her movements and she could tell how he was reluctant to say something the way he used to whenever he caught her fidgeting. It was a habit she formed and still does. She fiddled when she’s nervous, fiddled when she’s scared, fiddled when she’s lying.

“I just wanted to get some air, so I took a walk out here. It’s lovely,” Minho threw a thumb over his shoulder to the floral blooming spectacle behind him, “You know, what you’ve done with the place.”

“Thank you.” She smiled back at him, genuine and shy. Silence seeped through them, a million words hanging heavily without a sound that somehow felt so loud. Calla sprung up sprightly, grabbing back her mother’s attention as she scampered behind Minho, her little arms now around his legs.

The little girl peeped at her, flashing a gummy smile as she tightened her hug that made Minho a little flustered, standing frozen unsure of what to do.

“I’m sorry. She’s cheeky, this one.” A laugh leaped out of her helplessly and he was further perplexed, staring at her as he drunk in her new harmony.

It didn’t take long for him to be infected, chuckling lightly, “I can see who she takes after.”

She shook her head in a happy protest, her hair dancing along with the ocean’s breeze, reminding Minho collection upon collection of memories they spent by the sea. 

“Believe me, I’m the ‘no fun’ parent here.”

Minho had forgotten the years between them, that everything didn’t just pause and resumed to as it was before. She had a family now, a kid, and a husband that molded her into a version Minho knew nothing of.

“I’m married.” She confirmed, as if he’d laid out his thoughts out for her to see. It felt different to hear her say it even when Seunghoon had beaten her to it, his teeth clicked, biting down on the devastation that choked his entire being. 

“I heard. Do I get to meet him?”

“You’ll see him around.” Her eyes flipped back from the child clinging to his knees back to him quickly, guarded.

“I look forward to it.” Minho swallowed the blatant lie and swore that it tasted bitter. 

“I’m sure Jihoon feels the same, he’s heard lots about you.” Not only that this person now had a name, he knew of Minho and god knows what else, edging his insides to swirl sickly.

“Should I be worried?”

Minho had intended for it to be a joke, scraping the last bits of hope he could to lighten up atmosphere. But the pause she took sent a pang to his chest, looking at him a moment too intently.

“No. I don’t see why you should.” She offered him a lukewarm smile and hurried like she’d been caught. “I need to go, Calla’s the flower girl you see.”

Out of sheer reflex, he staggered back when she leaned in, kneeling down to scoop her daughter in her arms. Minho caught her scent, different to the one he kept dormant in his memories. There was a sudden rush of overwhelming realization that he shouldn’t expect the girl he once knew to appear before him. That after all this time, she didn’t just wait for him to come back but instead moved on as she was supposed to.

“Alright. It’s good to see you again, by the way.”

She nodded softly in reply, pursing her rosy lips to a line and looked at him in a way he couldn’t read, “I’ll see you around, Minho.”

The last summer.

A month until the final summer break and it had already been the second time she stopped taking his calls, disappearing for another week that was enough to drive Minho over the edge. So when her voice lulled softly through a call that afternoon, Minho was punching the accelerator of his dad’s truck, crazing his way over to her house on the other side of town.

She was leaning on the fence that gated a warm family home, one that he never stepped foot into, at least through the front door. Her parents were never fond of him and opposed their relationship rather openly just because Minho didn’t fit their painfully typical standards. One of them being his lack of commitment to take things further seeing how deeply invested their daughter was of him.

A button up denim skirt hugged her waist, falling snug just above her knees, paired with a plain white tee and a pair of scuffed sneakers on her skittish feet. He’d left the engine running as he rushed out of the pick up truck, running towards her and pulled her into his arms. Her hair smelled of the afternoon sun as it pooled under his chin and there was a dull ache in his chest the way she wasn’t sure of where her hands should go. It stayed loose on her side as Minho soaked in the bittersweet embrace.

Nevertheless, Minho brought his arm over her shoulder and ushered her silently towards the humming vehicle, well aware what it was that got her in such a mood. No words were needed because caustic situations like these have always drawn the two of them to that particular spot on the beach half an hour drive away.

A secluded section of the beach that lay between two rocky cliffs had been Taehyun’s grand discovery two summers back. The five of them favoured the breathtaking hideout so much that it became a ritual to loosen up at the place whenever exams ended or whenever life struck them a little too harsh.

None of them knew that Minho had broken the secret rule of never welcoming anyone else. Apart from Seunghoon who probably had suspected the funny business yet opted to keep things quiet out of pity. As expected, she came to adore it as much as Minho did, vowing to never say a word about her intrusion in the most gullible way possible. He was falling harder before he even knew.

Minho watched her a few steps behind as she trudged through the beach, slipping her shoes off and wriggled her toes in between the warm sand. He followed suit, sinking in the tranquility that the place offered as he squished his toes into the sand.

The afternoon was unusually void of the sea’s gushing wind, amplifying the stretch of silence that circled around the two of them like hungry hawks.

“Quit disappearing on me will you?” He managed after a while, convinced that he’d suffocate the longer they stayed quiet.

She kept her gaze forward to the waveless sea, sunlight bouncing off the curve of her lashes as she blinked, “They say that practice makes perfect.”

“What do you mean?” Minho grew impatient, restless over her endless detachment. He shifted to face her, demanding eye contact that he desperately needed after so long.

“You’re leaving anyway, might as well see what it’s like.” Her efforts seemed futile, nothing eased the constant throb in her chest ever since the nearing to the end of senior year.  

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” Minho clenched his jaw, hard, hopelessness fleeting in her words and he hated it.

She flicked her eyes to him then and it was wrong to think that it’ll make it easier when she looked nothing but distraught.

“It hurts, Minho. Being with you hurts lately, it doesn’t feel like how it used to.” It came out nearly inaudible; almost like she was holding back the cracks in her voice and it ticked a nerve in him.

“And distancing yourself from me doesn’t?” He didn’t mean for it to sound so offensive when he was in no position to feel upset. But he was, he was hurt too.

She said nothing for a few seconds, before dropping down onto the sand, splaying out underneath the late sun. A shaky sigh escaped her, and the gleaming sky fluttered her lids shut.

“I hate it. I hate being away from you too.”

Minho took the chance to observe her as he stood above her, sinking in every pixel of this memory that he never wanted to forget. The way her hair framed her face, and her cheeks tinted from the sticky heat. The curve of her collarbones. Her slightly parted lips.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, an apology that sounded spent and overused.

The way she mustered a closed eye smile like she expected it from him, tore Minho inside and he caught the split second quiver of her lips as she spoke back to him.

“Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for, chasing your dreams isn’t a crime.”

He settled next to her, mindlessly sneaking his arm in under her head and everything softened for just a little bit when she welcomed him, rolling gently in to nestle her chin into his neck.

“You make me feel like it is.” Minho voiced a strained whisper, strands of her hair blowing against his breath as he curled in closer to her and everything ached.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have fallen for someone like me. Maybe you should’ve went for that girl in your music class, isn’t she going to the same university as you?” She was crying, he could tell even when she tried to hide it. Minho always knew.

“’s sake, don’t start.” He warned quietly, tightening his arms around her in hopes to soothe everything that bruised.

“I promised myself that I would never ask you this, but I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t.” She pulled back, glassy eyes that searched his and for some reason Minho wished that she’d keep her promise.

“Can’t you just stay? Please?” She pleaded, tears b the corner of her eyes and rolled down with the seconds that he stalled.

Minho was right. She should have kept her promise.

“I’m sorry.”

She diverted her gaze to his chest, no longer disappointed at the only thing he could say to her. It dawned on her that nothing will change his mind, not even her that had shamelessly begged him to stay. She wondered why she took it deeply to heart when she knew what she had gotten into when he kissed him back that night with the bonfire twinkling in his eyes.

“Just say it, Minho.”

Minho should have known it wasn’t just him that knew her more than just skin deep, she saw right through him just as clearly.

“I just think you’re being selfish right now.” He confessed, prompting her to look elsewhere but him.

Then she braced a quiet breath, almost like she was terrified.

“I love you, Minho. So much that it hurts me. It hurts that you don’t want me as bad as I want you and it’s pathetic and sad, but if loving you makes me selfish then so be it. I may not have that many dreams, maybe none at all, but you were one. It may have destroyed me but I loved you fiercely like you were one.”

“I’m sorry.” He said once more, the words exhausting, meaningless now.

“Yeah, me too.”