I. nostalgia

When he spots her, it’s just across the intersection of the street, where she’s tapping her feet impatiently against the concrete at the stagnant red light that hasn’t moved in the past minute or two.

And when she spots him back, she’s in the middle of catching a simple glance at the insane amount of traffic on the opposite side of the road, exactly where his figure is stone still and staring at her, like she would disappear if he looked away for just one second.

Chaeyoung’s heart drops to her stomach and her stomach drops to her feet, because the last she’d seen him, she was 18 and hopelessly and foolishly in love.

But she’s 23 now, less hopeless and less foolish for this thing called love- or so she’d thought.

Because Jeon Jeongguk is crossing the street now, and she’s sure her brain has fallen somewhere along with her heart, because Chaeyoung doesn’t think about moving until he’s standing right in front of her and she almost self-destructs because he’s looking at her as though she was still 18 and so foolish, smiling (hesitatingly at first, but still smiling) at her as though he had never left.

“I thought I was mistaken at first, but turns out it’s really you huh?” he smiles wider, and Chaeyoung’s heart aches at the familiarity.

She blinks a few times. “I-” wish you were mistaken as well.

“-me too.”

>

II. chai

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

5 years, she wants to say, but she opts to trace the wooden swirls on the table in the Starbucks next to the street they met instead and, “Yeah, a while.”

Jeongguk still smiles like the beginning of summer holidays, where she remembers nothing except for the heat and high-waisted denim shorts, her hand forever in his, skating down the sidewalk to the usual store where the both of them would fight over what she’d insisted was the best flavor of popsicle sticks, (mangos obviously, she would argue) with her throwing her finished stick at his face and him dodging and sneaking in a kiss or two while she was pouting over his offensive statement of mangos are disgusting, insisting with a grin so bright Chaeyoung thinks it’d rival the sun’s that she was the best flavor- no, his favorite flavor no matter what. 

She briefly wonders if he still tastes like the iced chai latte she’d used to love.

“How have you…” he stops, in a breath.

“Been?” Chaeyoung continues for him.

Jeongguk gives a nod so tiny she thinks she’d miss it, if she wasn’t staring at him.

“Good.” She lies.

He blinks and she tries not to focus on the obvious disappointment in his eyes.

She forces a smile. “And you?”

He looks away. “I…fine, I’ve been fine.”

Jeongguk is still horrible at lying and some part of Chaeyoung wishes she didn’t know him so well, wishes he was a little better at hiding the truth so that she’d never allow herself to fall in love with him again, only out of it, because she doesn’t think she’s ever stopped since she started.

>

III. B612

“This is new.”

Chaeyoung yawns, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as he traces patterns across her back. “What is?”

He pauses when he reaches the base of her spine, fingers pressing slightly into the inked skin.  She shivers at the contact.

“This. You never told me about it.”

 She hums, smiling into the pillow. “You never asked.”

Jeongguk lets his fingers linger against the little asteroid, tracing unspoken questions Chaeyoung know he’s dying to ask into her skin.

“I got it after you left.”

“Why?”

“Because I am very fond of space rocks,” she says sarcastically.

Jeongguk laughs and Chaeyoung decides she likes the sound more than anything else in the entire universe.

“Yeah?” he grins. “Which one’s your favorite?”

She turns so that she can look at him with the side of her cheek resting against the pillow.

“B612,” she whispers.

The smile on his face softens immediately. “What?”

There’s silence for a while, and the both of them stare at each other with too many unspoken answers and questions.

“You left, and I needed some way to deal with the pain.”

She feels his fingers leave her back, only to feel them again against her cheek seconds later, wiping away the tears she didn’t realize she was shedding.

“But I’m back now, I came back-”

To you, for you, he wants to say but then Chaeyoung leans against the warmth of his hand and, “But who’s to say you won’t leave again?”

The next day, Jeongguk returns with a pair of scissors tattooed across his shoulder blade and when Chaeyoung asks him why as she’s lying on top of his chest and tracing the outline of his new ink, he only smiles wide like the ocean and the distance between the sun and moon and says, “because I have you now, so I no longer want to fly with the birds.”