"I've been tryna call,

I've been on my own for long enough,

Maybe you can show me how to love,

Maybe."

It’s exactly one minute to five in the morning when Seulgi checks her watch and rings up the cash register and calls it a day. She’s the only one there. Outside in the gas station parkinglot there are a grand total of zero cars. There on the highway heading south into the glare of predawn Seoul the roads are as silent as any roads have ever been. She listens to the hum of the refrigerators for a moment. Sometimes she thinks there’s a certain hypnotism to that sound. A sort of tranquillity to it that she can’t quite explain. Or perhaps it’s the mornings getting to her.

Somewhere in the low east the last of the night begins to pale away and fade. Seulgi grabs her jacket from the stool in the back and fastens it and grabs her phone and purse on the way out. It’s when she’s by the front door and ready to lock up that she sees the bright headlight cones cut across the parkinglot and stop by one of the far pumps and disappear again. She stands there for what feels like forever, her hand on the CLOSED sign hanging from a rubber peg pinned to the glass door. The car is the whitest she’s ever seen. It looks like something out of an old American TV show or a videogame. When the doors open they open upwards in a scissor motion like spaceship doors. Seulgi stops. She thinks about turning the sign over and heading out the back and thinks about it for a good while. Tick tock goes the clock. It’s three minutes past five and she’s not getting paid for this.

The woman that steps out of the white car and saunters across the parkinglot is dressed in a black leather jacket and has her hair tied back in a neat ponytail and looks familiar in the way that people sometimes do when seen out of the corner of the eye, or at a glance across a party. Like a vague reflection on a surface, a distant memory. She’s very pretty. That much is obvious across the parkinglot. The fact that comes to Seulgi before anything else is almost worth a laugh.

She’s maybe twenty-five or twenty-six or looks the same and she stands in front of the door and gestures politely behind Seulgi. Seulgi holds up a hand as if to say: We’re closed. She points to her watch as if to say again: We’re closed. And the woman in a state of apparent incomprehension nods to the shop a second time and pouts a slight and at that Seulgi sighs and opens the door and lets her in. For a moment she just stands there, smiling. Then she says in a low and soft and rather surprising voice: ‘Thanks.’

‘I was just about to close up.’

‘I’ll be quick.’

Seulgi only nods. She goes back to the counter and unlocks the register and stands watching the woman grab a couple things and stuff them into a white shoppingbag. She watches for what might just be a little too long but the woman doesn’t seem to notice. Her face in the sallow light from the overheads is captivating in an elegant sort of way. A sort of serene beauty to her sharp features, a slightly crooked smile of white teeth when she was by the door. It doesn’t occur to Seulgi that gawping at some entire stranger across the width of the room is in a manner of speaking quite unusual and perhaps a slight rude. Nothing occurs to her at all.

The woman puts the bag on the counter and stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jacket while Seulgi rings up the items. A couple chewy candy bars, two sticks of gum, a bottle of Sprite and a packet of potato chips. When Seulgi’s finished the woman nods to the sliding cabinet behind the counter. ‘Are you still selling those?’ she asks.

Seulgi nods. ‘What do you want?’

‘Marlboro Golds. Twenty.’

Seulgi opens the cabinet and puts a packet of the cigarettes on the counter and rings everything up. The smell of perfume is almost tangible, almost inviting. It’s a faint and teasing hint of sandalwood and jasmine and maybe orange and it’s almost infuriating in how immediate and proper it smells. Seulgi steals a quick glance at the woman. ‘That’s fourteen thousand won,’ she says.

‘Can I pay by card?’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s not contactless.’

‘Okay.’

She slots her card into the machine and waits. They both wait. Tick tock goes the clock, always tick tocking. Eight minutes past five.

The woman runs a hand through her neat hair and coughs and says, ‘Do you get many people coming in at this time?’

‘I’m normally closed at this time.’

‘Right.’

‘But not really, no. It’s quiet past midnight or so.’

‘Night shift?’

Seulgi nods grimly. ‘Nine to five. The other nine to five, I mean.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That yours?’

‘What?’

Seulgi points awkwardly in the direction of the parkinglot. The white car gleams in the gas station light. A rosy sun crests the far eastern sky in a newborn glow. ‘Oh,’ the woman says, ‘yeah.’

‘Nice car.’

‘Thanks. I get that a lot.’

‘What is it?’

‘The car?’

Seulgi nods.

‘Lamborghini Countach.’

‘Never heard of it. But I like the look of it.’

‘It’s a classic,’ the woman says, captive smile playing on her face again. It’s a smile that has Seulgi thinking a great many things and none of them coherent or modestly appropriate. So instead she says, ‘Looks like it cost a lot.’

‘Cost a bit. I can afford it.’

‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

The woman shrugs, the sort of reserved gesture that looks almost rehearsed and reveals nothing at all. Seulgi looks at her as if waiting for an answer but it never comes. Just the hum of the refrigerators and the clock tick tocking. Suddenly that silence is painfully tense. Seulgi taps the machine and offers a weak smile. ‘Would you like a receipt?’ she asks.

‘No, it’s okay. Thanks.’

‘Well.’

‘Guess I should get going. Sorry for keeping you open.’

‘It’s okay. It’s only ten minutes.’

The woman smiles again, the same warm and alluring smile, the glimmer of the overheads doubled light and counterlight in the dark of her eyes. She has a hand on the door when she stops and looks in her bag and back at Seulgi and smiles again, only this time it’s more awkward and apologetic. ‘,’ she says, ‘I forgot to pick up some ice cream.’

‘It’s over there. In the fridge at the back.’

‘Thanks.’

She vanishes behind one of the high shelves and reappears and sets two pint-tubs of ice cream on the counter, one mint chocolate and one cookie dough. Seulgi scans them in and takes her card and dials it up again. The wait for the machine to respond feels longer, more drawn out, torturous. Seulgi’s watch reads five thirteen. The sun is coming up. Another car lights up the distant highway and is reduced to the dark again and all this in a span of a few seconds that is elongated somehow into minutes, hours, days. Waiting for the machine, watching this woman over the counter. Another early morning encounter. Seulgi’s job seems to consist almost entirely of talking to midnight strangers and fantasising about them for minutes at a time and then forgetting about them half an hour later and this is no different.

The machine beeps. The woman removes her card and smiles and drops the ice cream into her bag. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s okay. Nice car.’

‘Thanks.’

It’s only when she’s gone and Seulgi is alone does she realise she said that twice.

It’s such a nice car that Seulgi recognises it immediately the second time it pulls into the gas station parkinglot three days later. It’s almost five in the morning again. The sight of it there sets off this strange and alien sense of trepidation in her that feels almost invasive. As if she’s looking forward to something she’s unaware even exists. The woman whose name she’s yet to know opens the door and smiles at her. She’s in the same jacket. Same ponytail, same smile, same eyes. And when she puts a handful of sticks of gum on the counter, Seulgi notices it’s the same perfume, too.

‘Long night?’ she asks.

‘Kinda. Why? Do I look tired?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. Just thought, you know. I didn’t think you’d remember me.’

‘You only came in a couple days ago.’

‘Yeah, but.’

‘I don’t get many customers on my shift. It gets a bit lonely sometimes.’

‘I know that feeling,’ the woman says, smiling weakly. ‘Can you grab me a pack of smokes?’

‘Marlboro Gold?’

She nods. Seulgi takes them out of the cabinet and scans them in and prices everything. The morning has taken on a cool dim hue and there is no sun. Nothing but the clock and the refrigerators again, forever keeping her a sort of solemn mechanical company. ‘That’s twelve thousand won,’ Seulgi says.

The woman passes her a couple bills and Seulgi rings up her change and hands it back. ‘Joohyun,’ the woman says.

‘Sorry?’

‘My name is Joohyun.’

‘Oh. Seulgi.’

‘Nice to meet you, Seulgi.’

‘You too,’ Seulgi says, unsure of what else to say. Niceties are a rarity at five AM here or indeed anywhere. She tries to think of something to say beyond Nice Car and draws a blank and so says, ‘Nice car.’

Joohyun laughs from the back of . It’s as strange and alluring as her smile, as her whole demeanour. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Again.’

‘What was it? A Lamborghini something or other. Cucumber? Kumquat?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Moustache?’

‘Countach.’

‘I was close.’

Another giggle. ‘Close enough,’ she says. ‘Closer than most.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Get what? The car?’

Seulgi nods.

‘The car shop.’

‘Is that a joke?’

‘No. I got it at a car shop.’

‘Oh,’ Seulgi says sheepishly. ‘It just sounded like, you know.’

‘Like a joke?’

‘Kinda.’

‘What were you expecting me to say?’

‘Honestly, I don’t know. I just said it.’

‘What time do you finish?’

‘What?’

Joohyun repeats herself. It takes Seulgi a moment to understand what she’s asked at all. Then she replies, ‘Five. Same as every night.’

‘Are you working tomorrow?’

‘Yeah. Sadly.’

‘You work Saturdays.’

‘Sadly. Why?’

‘No reason,’ Joohyun says with a shrug. ‘I’m just nosy, is all. I ask a lot of questions. Thanks for the smokes.’

‘You want some ice cream with that?’

A smile again. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Still got some from the other day.’

‘Well.’

‘See you ‘round, Seulgi.’

‘Yeah. See you ‘round.’

Then she’s gone, and Seulgi watches as the pale vision of her shrinks across the parkinglot and disappears into the white Lamborghini and pulls out of the gas station in a cough of engine and is lost to the morning, car and sound and shape and memory, and all that remains is the crimson maw signalling the arrival of another new day.

The first thing she asks the third time Joohyun steps into the store the following Wednesday is, ‘Are you sure we haven’t met before? I swear I know you from somewhere. Like, I’ve seen your face before.’

‘Maybe,’ Joohyun says with a curt shrug. She takes a minute to look around, to glance at things and pick up trinkets from the shelves and inspect the cute little lollipops and giftwrapped chocolates in the tray beside the counter. As if she is in some way fascinated by the existence of these things. It’s a cold and lonely Wednesday morning. The clock reads four forty-six. The purple of the sky streaks like ink blots. Joohyun in that leather jacket idles up and down the aisles. Eventually she returns to the counter and hands over two sticks of gum and a strawberry lollipop and smiles.

‘Good choice,’ Seulgi says.

‘Thanks. Can you get me a pack of smokes as well?’

‘Same as before?’

‘Yeah.’

She rings up the Marlboro Golds and bags it all together and hands it to Joohyun but Joohyun doesn’t move. She just stands there, watching Seulgi over the counter, weighing her up, judging perhaps her value or her reaction or something vaguer still but what in truth is unknowable to Seulgi. ‘What?’ Seulgi says. ‘Have I got something on my face?’

‘No. Sorry.’ She glances up at the clock behind Seulgi’s head. ‘Are you closing soon?’ she asks.

‘In about fifteen minutes.’

‘You wanna go for a drive?’

‘What?’

Irene nods in the direction of the car.

‘A drive where? Like, home?’

‘Wherever. I can take you home if you want.’

‘Where were you thinking?’

‘Anywhere. Just a drive. See the sights. Feel the air.’

‘Feel the air.’

‘Metaphorically. It’s not a convertible, before you ask.’

Seulgi laughs. She listens to the dim mechanical hum of the refrigerators in a constant, consistent whir. The clock on the wall reads almost five. The first morning bus comes at twenty past, so it’s either a twenty-minute wait in the freezing cold or whatever this is. Whatever strange and interesting thing. Joohyun tilts her head a slight as if to encourage her to some form of action, so in the spirit of things and still wearing that smile she says softly and with a hint of newly infused enthusiasm, ‘Yeah. Sure. I’ll just lock up and meet you inside.’

‘Cool.’

She fumbles her keys and locks down everything. First the cash register and the cigarette and alcohol cabinets. Then it’s the refrigerators and the storeroom in the back and finally the front door and the safety shutters that come down over the windows. Two minutes to five. Seungwan won’t be on shift for another hour. By the time she’s outside the car is already started, the engine a hoarse growl that sounds wicked, alive. The car is long and low and incomprehensible. It’s a poster of a car, a bedroom toy, a movie prop. Joohyun’s stood by the far side. She opens the scissor door on the driver’s side with a kind of proud grin and steps in and closes it behind her. It takes Seulgi a while to absorb it all. To just stare at it and then step back and stare at it some more and finally pull the door up over her head and clamber in beside Joohyun.

‘Well?’ Joohyun says. ‘What do you think?’

It’s a two-seater, no back seats, a simple centre console of plush burgundy leather and Italian handwoven craftsmanship. The embroidered stitching running along the seams of the seat is gold affixed. The gearstick is a five-speed manual, the steeringwheel a simple polished walnut and very large. Joohyun looks at her from the driver’s seat in apprehension.

‘It’s nice,’ Seulgi says, not sure what else to say. ‘Very nice.’

‘Thanks. I quite like it myself.’

‘Yeah?’

‘That’s why I bought it.’

‘Where are we going?’

Joohyun glances in the rearview mirror and pulls slowly out of the parkinglot. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Wherever.’

She heads south, racing the morning sun. Long flurries of pink go soaring down the skyline like disco lights, the clouds curiously untouched. In the morning the engine the only sound. When she downshifts it coughs and cracks and the exhaust spits a lamp of flame that lights the road behind them like a violent afterthought. When Seulgi glances over she sees the massive grin on Joohyun’s face and can’t help but smile herself. Driving and driving. The streets of Seoul look pure and untouched at this time of the morning. Only a handful of morning commuters. A morose and tranquil loneliness. She drives them around for almost an hour in silence. Seulgi watches her. She watches the sun climb and climb in the east like a lamplight and the beckoning of the morning. It smells of plush leather and of Joohyun’s perfume.

‘Well,’ Joohyun says, ten minutes to six.

‘Well.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Of the car?’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s nice.’

‘Nice.’

‘Sorry,’ Seulgi says bashfully. ‘I don’t know what else to say. I’m not really the biggest car person. I mean, I like it, but I don’t know what else to say.’

‘What are you big on, then?’

‘What?’

‘What do you like?’ Joohyun says. ‘What interests you? If not cars, I mean.’

It takes Seulgi an uncomfortably long time to respond. The truth is she doesn’t really know. There are things in her life she enjoys and things she thinks she might if only she spent more time on them but the concept of hobbies is ephemeral to her, forever changing. What may one minute be of great interest may the next be nothing at all. Perhaps that’s her biggest character flaw. She thinks in moments of quiet reflection it may just be. So she answers: ‘I don’t know. Honestly.’

‘There must be something.’

‘Quite a few things. But nothing really holds my interest, at least I don’t think so.’

‘What do you want to be, then? Unless you wanna be a cashier. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.’

She thinks about that for a while, too. There are a few things. Eventually she says, ‘I don’t know. I’ve always kinda wanted to teach, but I don’t know about that anymore.’

‘Teach? Teach what?’

‘Anything. I like learning and helping other people learn. I know that sounds cliché.’

‘A bit.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s good. Nothing wrong with being cliché. Cliché is cliché for a reason.’

‘Suppose you’re right.’

‘Listen to this,’ Joohyun says. Before Seulgi has a chance to ask she purposely drops the car a gear and revs it a slight too high and refuses to shift up again. So that the engine warbles a deep and uncomfortable sound that has Seulgi’s ears rattling. It sounds like a mechanical cough. When she shifts up and brakes for a corner ahead the smile playing on her face is as telling as the glimmer in her eyes. ‘What was that about?’ Seulgi asks.

‘Did you not like it?’

‘I mean…’

‘I love that sound. Don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it. I could do it all day.’

‘So is this your thing? Cars, I mean.’

Joohyun shrugs. ‘Something like that.’

‘Kinda rare, don’t you think?’

‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’

‘No. I didn’t mean that. I meant I don’t see this sort of thing often. I didn’t think you could get a car like this into the country.’

‘It’s hard, I’ll tell you that. And expensive. Very expensive. But I could afford it, and it’s my dream car. One of my dream cars.’

‘What’s the other one?’

‘Ferrari Testarossa. In white.’

‘?’

‘The colour. That’s what the colour is, officially.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much of an official colour.’

‘Yeah, well. Makes more sense if you knew who owned a Testarossa.’

‘Who?’

‘You wouldn’t know them,’ Joohyun says. Seulgi takes a moment to stare at her from the passenger seat as she drives. The way the pale morning light catches her face frames it like a portrait. She looks very familiar. The thought of that is inescapable. At the intersection lights ahead Joohyun slows and turns to Seulgi and grins again. ‘You wanna see something?’ she says.

‘I don’t think I like the sound of that.’

‘Just wait for it.’

‘Are you going to race once the lights go green?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Isn’t that illegal?’

‘Not if I don’t go over the speed limit.’

‘And are you going to?’

‘No,’ Joohyun says, and Seulgi isn’t sure if it’s a carefully managed lie or the truth. The lights go amber. Green flashes and the tyres cry against the concrete and the car disappears along the avenue in a blur that has Seulgi’s head spinning. When they slow again at the next set of lights just up ahead Joohyun is laughing.

‘Jesus,’ Seulgi mutters.

‘I never went over the speed limit, by the way. Just to ease your fears.’

‘It felt like it.’

‘Yeah, it will. It’s got some kick to it, this thing. Part of the reason why I bought it. It was the fastest car in the world when it was first released. In the 1980s, that is.’

Seulgi ignores her and it’s not on purpose. It’s the look on Joohyun’s face, the soft glow when she talks about her car, that has Seulgi paying attention again. Listing off the facts and figures. Fastest car, 1980s, a couple hundred ever made. Did you know this celebrity had one? Only three in all of Asia and you’re sitting in one. It’s intoxicating listening to her talk with such enthusiasm, the kind of passion Seulgi hasn’t felt in a long time about anything. Morning shifts are good at dimming out that light wherever it lingers. She speeds through another couple intersections and says something else about the car, something about the engine or the top speed, but Seulgi isn’t listening. She’s watching and smiling.

‘Seulgi?’

‘Sorry,’ Seulgi says. ‘Caught me drifting.’

‘I said do you fancy something to eat?’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything. A sandwich or something.’

‘Sure. If you’re offering.’

She parks up in a gas station and steps out and disappears into the little shop and Seulgi watches her go. Her wristwatch reads ten past six in the morning. The bronze sun sits swaged into the clouds like a brass coin. The day rising. She looks about at the solitude of everything and realises she has no idea where they are or how to get home. Joohyun returns a minute later with a shoppingbag and rifles through it in the driver’s seat. ‘Got you this,’ she says, handing Seulgi a plasticwrapped sandwich. ‘It’s ham and cheese. Didn’t know what you liked.’

‘Ham and cheese is good.’

‘You wanna go anywhere else?’

‘Like, in the car?’

‘Sure.’

‘I don’t know. Anywhere.’

‘Have you got somewhere you need to be?’

‘Not really. Not until tonight, I guess.’

‘Not doing anything?’

Seulgi shakes her head. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ve got work in a couple hours,’ Joohyun says.

‘Where do you work?’

‘Not far from here.’

Seulgi thinks about probing for a clearer answer and thinks against it. There’s something in that tone, in the way Joohyun is casually dismissive, that tells her to drop it. She looks at the sandwich in the wrapper, not at all hungry and a little unsure why she asked for one in the first place. She says, ‘Have you been awake all night?’

‘Most of the night, yeah.’

‘But you said you’ve got work.’

‘My sleeping pattern’s really messed up. My body clock’s not right. I sleep when I can, really.’

‘Where do you work?’ Seulgi asks again, and immediately regrets it. There’s a kind of tension the moment it slips out that has her on edge. Joohyun ignores her. As if the subject is something she either cannot or will not talk about. Instead she grabs a bottle of water from the bag and holds it up against the roof domelight and opens it and drinks. ‘I work really weird hours,’ she says. ‘Don’t get much time to sit down and do normal stuff. Or to sleep at normal hours. Not that I could if I had that opportunity anyway. I’m kinda nocturnal.’

‘Do you work on a rota?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’

‘Did we used to work together?’

Joohyun breaks into a disarming laugh. It’s genuine enough to be almost off-putting. ‘What?’ she says. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Sorry. It’s just, I swear I’ve seen you before, and with you talking about rotas—’

‘You talked about rotas.’

‘Right. Yeah. But I thought maybe we worked together before or something. Thought maybe I recognised your face from there.’

‘Where did you use to work?’

‘This coffee house near where I live.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Where I live?’

Joohyun nods.

‘Just this place in Hannam. A little apartment.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘Just curious. I like to ask questions. Sorry.’

‘It’s alright. I don’t mind answering.’

‘You want a lift back?’

Seulgi checks her watch. Quarter past six in the morning, sun’s coming up. Maybe it’s okay to say No, I want to go for a drive again. But instead she takes the safe option and says, ‘Sure.’

‘You’re gonna have to tell me where it is exactly, though.’

‘I will.’

With no traffic it’s twenty minutes before they turn up across the street from Seulgi’s apartment block. For a moment she just sits there. The rosy sun sets the world alight in a soft pink haze, a fine autumn mist in the cold. Joohyun smiles at her. ‘Here we are,’ she says.

‘Thanks. That was fun.’

‘Why do you work so far from here?’

‘It’s not that far.’

‘It’s like an hour.’

‘A bit over.’

‘Why?’

Seulgi shrugs. ‘Don’t know,’ she says truthfully. ‘I applied for a bunch of jobs at once and it was the first place that took me on. I didn’t really care. Still don’t. I just needed the money. Still do. And I get the bus, so it’s not all that bad. Gives me some time to chill out, listen to some music, maybe a podcast, you know?’

‘Sure,’ Joohyun says with a soft smile. The engine sits idling. Someone appears to be watching them from up the street. Seulgi sits there for a minute longer. ‘Thanks again,’ she says. ‘Was cool to do something different for a change. I like the car.’

‘You’ve said.’

‘Seriously. I’ve never seen one before.’

‘Would you be able to tell if you had?’

‘Probably not, in honesty. But I don’t think I’ve seen one. You said there’s only three in all of Asia.’

‘There or thereabouts.’

‘So the chance is pretty low, right?’

That smile again. And Joohyun saying: ‘Very low.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ Seulgi asks, and there’s a moment where the look in Joohyun’s eyes has her wishing she had kept quiet again.

‘For…I dunno. Just thank you.’

‘Cool. Thanks for the lift.’

‘Any time.’

She steps out and waves and smiles and watches as the Lamborghini rumbles and pulls slowly away. The exhaust cracks in a of bright flame like a car from a comicbook. The white is blinding. When she looks again there are maybe a dozen people gawping at it from various places along the street. For a long time she just stands there on the kerb gazing up at her apartment block across from her.

Just one of those things. One of those strange occurrences, acquaintances, that comes along once in a while. One of those rare and fleeting connections that lasts for only an hour or three or perhaps if you’re lucky an entire night and then is gone, is lost forever. A ghost of a conversation. A drunken night out, strangers passing, words exchanged. Occasionally it’s stories of the past. Recollections. The night time is perfect for those things. In the dark only the shadows remain. Secrets are spilt and friendships formed and loves born and the world turns. Turns and it turns. And when the morning comes all that remains is memories, the lucid aftermath of a time better spent, a momentary wanderlust in the hectic nature of all things. A morning drive in the empty streets. Two strangers sharing. Seulgi looks down at the ham and cheese sandwich and sighs. Her watch reads six thirty near enough. Thirteen hours from now it’s time to head out and grab the bus to work. But for now it’s memories.

A/N: Was gonna be a one-shot but I am literally incapable of not being self-indulgent and dragging out everything lol. Dunno how long it's gonna be now :)   Leave a comment and upvote if ya liked it so far <3  AND STREAM BLINDING LIGHTS XO