Yongsan district, Seoul, South Korea

He heard the phone vibrating across the room, skittering back and forth across the hard tabletop surface. Its flashing lights bothered him in the darkness of his bedroom, shining like an annoying little beacon surrounded by a sea of black. The vibration stopped, and the room was once again without light. Seunghyun wasn't asleep himself, but the woman lying beside him had been for hours, her soft breathing beside him amplified by the lack of any other sound. He guessed that the phonecall was from Jiyong, his bandmate who also was notorious for being a night owl and was well known to phone others at 4am as easily as 4pm. He sat up on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair then across his face. Might as well get up, it was pointless to lay in bed staring at the ceiling until the sun came up.

The phone flashed and vibrated once more, and his girlfriend shifted in her sleep some. He rose quietly and pulled the phone from its cord, silencing it while watchng the caller ID screen. It still flashed in his hand, and incoming call from a private number. He stepped out of the room and into the dimly lit hallway, pulling the door closed gently behind him as he answered. 

~~~~~
Rachel held her breath as she had dialed a second time, now almost certain she was calling a complete stranger across the ocean and probably waking them from a dead sleep as well. She told herself if no one answered on the second time, that would be it and she would be done with this whole concept. The ringer suddenly cut off and was replaced by a masculine, deep voice. 

She realized her Korean was in ruins as she forced out a greeting, and then stammered in a mix of both languages that she must have the wrong number.
"Its OK, no problem." The man's voice on the other end replied, in accented English, which surprised her. She decided that she had made enough of a fool of herself that one more question couldn't do any more damage before this person hung up on her.

"Wait!" She all but shouted in Korean, "Does the name Bora mean anything to you??"

Rachel heard the sharp inhale over the phone, followed by silence. She continued, running her words together and trying to explain things as fast as she could. That she was Bora, Rachel, and she didn't know if she had the right person but she found this phone number in a very, very old email account that she never used anymore. She found the old laptop with a million missed emails from the old account on it, including ones that gave this numb-
"Is this a joke?" The man's voice was low, not quiet a whisper, but still soft and deep. Rachel couldn't remember if this was what his voice was like 10 years ago. Was this him? It must be, or else why ask if this was any kind of joke. She lept up from her bed, standing in the middle of the floor and, holding the phone away from her face before doing so, screamed.

"Seunghyun, its me, Rachel!"

~~~~~~
Seunghyun pinched his arm, hard, as he cradled the phone against his ear with his shoulder. He actually sat down in the hallway, resting his back against the wall as he listened to this girl on the phone tell him all these things that made him feel like he had to pinch himself and make sure he wasn't having one of those really vivid, day in the life of me-esque dreams. No, this was definetly real, because that just hurt like hell. He had thought of this moment before, in passing and never truly thinking it would happen. There had been some days over the years where he had wanted nothing more than to hear her voice, to have a sense of normal again, he had thought of her more in the time directly after she left than recently but it never failed. She crossed his mind at least once every few weeks now. Where she was, what kind of life she had? He vaguely wondered at one point if she had gotten married yet. Seunghyun had buried that thought as deep as possible because the strange, mild feeling of jealous sadness wasn't one he wanted to dwell on. 

"If this is really Rachel, what's your sister's name?" He finally replied.

He heard a little giggle on the other end of the phone, and he couldn't help but smile as well as she told him to stop the quizzing, they both knew she was an only child. 

Seunghyun heard her give a sigh over the phone, "I am so, so sorry. I didn't mean to lose contact with you. It just seemed-"

"I know. I know what you mean," Seunghyun agreed softly, "I never thought I would hear from you again. This is crazy."
"Tell me everything! But in English if you can. I never used Korean after we moved back so I sort of forgot most of it." There was a little hint of shame in her voice at admitting this.

He didn't know where to begin. Everything? How would he even explain that. Oh, by the way, in the past decade I became famous, nothing major really. She obviously didn't search for him but instead called the number first. 
"Let's just say that I finally got my life together, and I'm not broke anymore." He laughed at the last part and so did she. 
"Yea I noticed that, your email talked about some 1% risk it for the biscuit stuff. Detail me. Inquiring minds want to know what Choi Seunghyun has been up to these days."

That last sentance rang in his ears. For so long he assumed that everyone, at least everyone in his world knew what Choi Seunghyun was doing. Rachel was truly oblivious to who he was, at least for now. 

"I'd rather hear about your details, ladies first." He told her with a little smirk. He was going to avoid this subject like fire for now. He listened to her explain that she had just stayed in Arizona, the desert covered state and went to university, that she had in fact just finished graduate school. Seunghyun gave a low whistle at this. Rachel was a smartie then, and looked like she was a smartie still. She told him she was a nurse, and struggled for the Korean word for this. Ganhosa. 
Seunghyun laughed at this, the fact that she could manage anything in the language after so long was amazing.

"Are you married yet?" He questioned, and waited for the yes that he was so sure of. If not married, she most likely had a boyfriend at least.
"Nope, I am not," Rachel lamanted, "in fact, I've been single for a while now, less hassle. You?"
He knew he shouldn't have lied about it but the words fell out of his mouth almost out of his control. He shot a glance towards the bedroom door, and looked back at the hallway wall in front of him.

"Same here."

"I need a picture of you. A new one, you know so I can put the current face to the name I already know. The last one I have of you is when we were in highschool." She made this more of a statement than a request, and he knew there was no avoiding this like there was the subject of his so called career. Seunghyun had instantly realized that he looked very little like his former self, she was probably expecting an older version of the same chubby guy she knew as a teenager. 

"Come on, I tell you what, I'll send you one of me first. Wait a second," Rachel's voice sounded like she was concentrating on something as she spoke, "There. I sent it to you."

The phone buzzed against his shoulder. New message. Seunghyun tapped it open and stared at the image on the screen. He could instantly tell it was her, she had the same smile and same piercingly blue eyes with a scatter of freckles still existing across her nose. But her unruly orange hair was gone, replaced with a sleek and darker color mane. She still had a baby face and looked younger than she was, he was also clearly able to see that she didn't have a twelve year old's body anymore. Instead she had grown up nicely, bigger than he imagined she would ever get since Rachel was always a twig, but it fit her well. He picked a random photo of him and Jiyong, and placed a smiley face emoji over his bandmate's head before sending it. He could hear the message chime of her phone as it arrived. She was silent. Stayed silent for a few moments that felt like hours. 

"Wow. That is...." She struggled for words and finally, "...amazing that you're single. I guess thats proof your weird personality is still the same."

They both stifled laughs at this. Unspoken confirmation that this hadn't changed at all. Seunghyun glanced at the time on his phone. It had been two hours already. It was almost morning.

"Can I call you again? Or text, which ever is easier." Rachel asked towards the end of the conversation. Seunghyun wanted that right now like he wanted air. He had spent all this time thinking of what if, what if, if only, how life and fate were complete since that last night Rachel was in Korea and he kissed her, told her he would wait for her. And in fact he really had for a long time. Seunghyun had avoided getting into any serious realtionships save this current one, after he had come to the realization that he was an idiot to keep his love life on hold for some highschool crush that was long gone. The universe was a cruel jokester indeed. 

(*** I'm probably going to post another update or two over the weekend, hooray for free time! Again, comment and let me know what you think so far ^^***)