“Attention, all passengers of Korea Air A2 320. Your flight has been delayed due to the increased air traffic caused by the building thunderstorm in our area. The estimated time of departure has been moved to 8:10pm. We advise that you stay within the boarding area in case of schedule change. Thank you for your patience.”

“Aw, that’s a 40-minute delay.”

Seulgi stretches her legs to ease the cramp in her leg from sitting on the cold and hard bench for two hours. She checks her watch. It reads 6:40pm. She hugs her hoodie closer to herself as it was a bit cold because of the thundering storm outside. The wind howls a little and adds to the spooky ambience in the airport that night. Being a big aviation geek, she came to the airport early on purpose to watch the planes landing and taking off. If not, she wouldn’t have come three hours early for an hour-long flight to Jeju. Due to the inclement weather though, only one or two planes were arriving every 30 minutes and she was slowly starting to get bored.

She decided to get up for a walk and buy a waffle from the stand on the opposite side of the boarding area. With her headphones on full volume, she slowly walks by the other people impatiently waiting for their flight while continuingly looking out the window, waiting for a plane to land so she could snap a picture of it for her album. Her gaze transfers to a man angrily waving his hands while talking to an apologetic looking airport gate agent. Although she couldn’t hear them, she could tell he was demanding an explanation as to why they had to wait one more hour for their flight when they’ve already been waiting for hours. Seulgi scoffs, thinking about how selfish and inconsiderate people could be by taking out their frustration on the poor agents for something they can’t even control.

Finally, she’s at the waffle place. She takes off her headphones to avoid being rude to the cashier.

“One chocolate please, and a small cold milk. Thanks so much.”

After walking back to her spot on the other side while happily munching on her waffle and humming to her songs on shuffle, it’s finally time to board. Turns out, there was only a 20-minute delay so they weren’t made to wait that long. She puts on her backpack and excitedly lines up alongside her co-passengers. Her friends would say that they wouldn’t be able to tell whether she booked her Jeju trip to tour Jeju or to just have another excuse to ride a plane, seeing how much Seulgi loves plane rides.

Seulgi snaps a few pictures of the planes on the tarmac while going across the glass bridge connecting them to the plane. “For my new phone background”, she says to herself.

There’s something to know about Seulgi. She’s a shy college girl who goes weak for beautiful older women with small faces and long hair. Although, you can say that she always finds the courage to talk to said beautiful women when she really wants to.

So, when she steps foot in the plane and looks up to face the flight crew to greet them hello, she has to double take to process the beauty of the flight attendant in front of her. It’s a brief moment, but she smiles brightly to the woman standing opposite her and sees the latter switch from her professional smile to a bigger, more genuine one for a split second before she’s pushed to move forward and enter the cabin by the old lady behind her. Seulgi realized that the crew member could have not expected that, seeing as passengers are usually grumpy and lifeless, especially on flights on days like these.

It’s the small things like this that allow Seulgi to live on despite the growing fears of her future and the difficulty of her journalism course. In her head, she pumps her fist in the air, thinking about the shine in the attendant’s eyes when she smiled at her.

She puts her bag in the overhead bin and quickly takes her seat next to the aisle to allow the other passengers to pass. There’s a ticking bomb in front of her in the form of a baby looking like they’re about to cry in the seat in front of her, and she silently prays that it won’t explode during the entirety of the flight.

She spots the flight attendant from earlier helping an arrogant looking man put his bag up while he lazily takes his seat. “It might be their job to assist us, but shouldn’t we at least not take so much advantage of the people around us??”, she thinks as she increases the volume on her headphones again.

The crew member then walks to the passenger directly in front of Seulgi to hand an infant’s life vest to the parents while instructing them how to use it. Seulgi takes the time to appreciate the features of the attendant.

Her name tag read “Irene”. Seulgi notices her long brown hair. Curled for a bit of volume at the bottom, and splashed with a few highlights that weren’t so bright and just right. Her modest makeup taught by the airline that just accentuates her gentle features. Her soft and round eyebrows, her straight and small nose, and small face. She looks like she’s in her early to mid-twenties, about 5 to 10 years older than Seulgi. Her perfect posture and graceful walk make Seulgi a bit conscious about her own way of presenting herself, but she shrugs the thought away.

Everyone has finally boarded and taken their seats, so all the crew line up at the aisle and start the safety demo. Seulgi peeks her head out to pay attention to them and notices that “Irene” is the one nearest in front of her. She shyly looks up and makes eye contact with her, but quickly looks away. A panicked gay as her best friend Wendy would say. She looks up again and spots the attendant softly smiling with a glint in her eye.

“I’m going to bonk myself in the head, I’m embarrassing myself in front of a pretty lady again.” Seulgi scolds herself for the nth time today.

Another crew member “Joy” as she introduced herself, speaks up to the cabin mic.

“Good evening passengers on board Korea Air A2 320. We apologize for the delay caused by the bad weather and thank everyone for finding their patience today. We will be passing complementary snacks after take-off as a small token of appreciation. Our flight time will be an hour and thirty minutes long. Please make yourselves comfortable and feel free to ask any of the crew members for assistance.”

The pilot makes their presence known after a few minutes:

“This is your Captain Son speaking, together with my first officer Kim. Thank you for choosing Korea Air. There will be some turbulence on the way, but worry not, as we will surely be safe the entire flight. The only thing to fear during the bumps is spilling hot coffee on yourself. Crew, please take your seats for takeoff.”

Seulgi feels the breeze as the crew briskly walk to their seats at the front and back of the plane. When Irene walks past, she notices that the attendant smells of a certain perfumed detergent mixed with a wood sage spray.

“This is dangerous” she thinks as she sinks into her seat. Seulgi just keeps finding attributes that make the woman so attractive.