It was only two days since she had left but to him it felt like an eternity.

               They’ve spoken a couple times since her departure, but it hardly did anything for the pain. She left him. Of course, he knew why, she had always been totally and completely honest with him but that didn’t help much either. It had been because of her father, it was because of him that she left. He remembered the day all too clearly.

                They had just come home from dinner. She had begun to spend the night more and more frequently at his place and a few days before, she officially checked out of the hotel she had been staying in. “I’m going to take a shower,” she announced, dropping her purse on the coffee table. She gave him a sweet kiss before disappearing behind the bathroom door.

                He plopped down unceremoniously on the couch and loosened his tie. It was the first time he had been home all day and running a company from the ground up was hard. He was so tired he didn’t even notice the sound of a vibration on the table or the sound of the door opening a few minutes later.

                “My phone rang?” she asked, and Tony grunted, raising his shoulders in an I-don’t-know fashion and she laughed. “You’re bad, Tony,” she scolded him, pushing his head gently, “How do you not know?”

                “Easy,” he hummed, wrapping himself around the small girl’s frame. “I’m not all knowing, Tiffany,” he mocked as he watched her check her missed calls list on her phone. She frowned, wondering out loud why he, of all people, was contacting her.

                Tiffany pressed the ‘send’ button and pressed the phone to her ear. It wasn’t long before someone greeted her on the other end, nor was it long before a heated conversation began. “How can you ask this of me?” Tiffany asked incredulously, her voice raising a little, just enough to alarm Tony.  “This isn’t fair, how can you ask this?”

                Just as quickly as it began, the conversation was over. Tiffany practically threw her phone down and slumped back in the couch, disregarding the Korean man draped awkwardly around her. Tony grunted and shifted to make himself more comfortable, but couldn’t open his eyes. “Wasssup?” he asked, slurring his words.

                After a long moment of silence, Tiffany replied, finally, in a soft whisper, “I’m returning to America.”

                Tony tried and begged her to stay, but she couldn’t be persuaded and Tony couldn’t help but to wonder what her father must have told her because there was no budging her. Eventually, Tony stopped trying altogether and Tiffany had the plane tickets in her hands. After a long, sweet kiss, Tony proclaimed, “No matter what, you’ll always welcome back,” and softly, he added, “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it may be.”

                Despite the tears in her eyes and the aching in her heart, Tiffany boarded the plane and returned home. Tony returned to his home as well, vowing to keep his promise. So he waits.

end;

listeningto; Soul - Moon Heejun