"If I talk to you in my heart, will you be able to listen?"

She tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. The afternoon sun lit up the strands of brown in her coiffed hair and sent sparkles flying from the string of diamonds that circled . Behind the diaphanous veil, her eyes were bright with anticipation. Even she had to admit that today she looked-and felt- beautiful.

Make-up and a fancy dress can do wonders for one's appearance, but she knew the radiant smile on her face was all thanks to one man.

Nam Woohyun.    

***

Love stories, when told from beginning to end, always tend to sound clichéd. Yet, mere words cannot do justice to all that lies between the lines, the incandescent moments that burn so brightly they drown out the shadows of time and remain in our memories, brilliant and inextinguishable.  

***

She remembers the day they met again after a decade apart.

Autumn sunshine streamed through the window, filling the room with its warm, golden light. She leaned against the podium as she surveyed the empty rows of desks, mind weary after another hectic day as homeroom teacher. The room, which had been occupied by thirty-four chattering students moments ago, was eerily quiet.

She turned at the sound of a soft tap on the open door. The man standing at the doorway was not a student as she had expected. He wore a crisp blazer with a matching tie and had a stack of notebooks in his arms. Her heart stopped as she studied his features. The years had sharpened his cheekbones and broadened his shoulders, but the slightly upturned lips and smiling eyes were exactly as she remembered. He was, without a doubt, Nam Woohyun.

"Sunsaeng-nim," he said, lips quirking into a grin. "I was hoping to run into you."

"What are you doing here?" The words rushed out, tumbling one over another at the same speed as her frantic heartbeat.  

"Haven't you heard? I'm the new Literature teacher in town." With all the easy confidence of his adolescent self, he strode towards her and gestured to the empty seats. "This is our old classroom, isn't it?"

She nodded, watched quietly as he took in the worn desks, gauzy curtains and colorful green bookshelves. His fingertips lightly brushed the wooden surface of the desk closest to the podium.

"I remember you sat right here," he said, eyes softening. "You were always studying so diligently, and every single time I walked pass, I would wish that you would forget your books and just look at me, even for a second."

A part of her wanted to tell him that she had looked, that reading had been a pretense because she had been too afraid to acknowledge her haphazard feelings.

The curtains fluttered as a gust a wind blew through the windows. She froze as he closed the space between them and lifted a hand to her face, gently brushing back strands of hair that had drifted out of place. They stood silently, his gaze wistful as it held hers.

Her heart throbbed as she pressed down a surging wave of hope. Hope that perhaps he was here for a reason and that the first love she had stowed away would bloom once more. 

***

Her hope, like a flower, lay dormant throughout the cold months that followed. Their relationship grew no further than that of cordial coworkers and their first day in the empty classroom remained unspoken. Yet, there were moments when their eyes met where she would wonder if, perhaps, the reignited spark was not solely her imagination.

It was the middle of March when the distance between them began to close. Misery has always loved company and they would stay after hours at the office, marking midterms side by side. They started off with safe, work-related topics like annoying admins and troublemaking students. Gradually, they delved into the more personal. She listened as he spoke of teaching in Seoul and she found herself telling him what life had been like after he had left the high school, all those years ago.

"Of course the Kim Myungsoo would go into acting," he chuckled one evening as they exchanged news of old classmates while photocopying the next day's handouts. "He was the pretty boy that all the girls wanted to date. I bet you liked him too, didn't you?"

"No I didn't," she replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Liar." He grinned as he handed her a stack of freshly printed pages. "Who did you like, then?"

"None of your business" she muttered and continued shuffling her papers, praying that the growing blush on her cheeks would escape his notice. After a slight pause, he asked.

"You're not curious about who I liked?" There was a teasing lilt in his voice but his gaze was so earnest that her hands froze mid-shuffle.

For the second time, she felt his fingers against her cheek. Her senses sped to overdrive: the brown depths of his eyes, the smell of freshly printed paper and  the thudding of her racing heart. He leaned in until his face was a bare breath away and his next words were a feather-soft brush of air, warm as a summer breeze.

"It was you."

And then his lips were on hers, soft and gentle. It was the kiss she had always dreamed of, a kiss with all the innocence and sweetness of a first love. And when they broke apart, the decade they had spent apart had vanished and in its place, was a tiny bud about to bloom .

***

He was the only one she had noticed back then, back when she was fifteen.

Maybe it was because of his carefree smile or the simple fact that he was constantly on the periphery of her vision. Days, weeks even, could pass without any eye contact but he was always there; laughing at the back of the classroom or running across the football field. Grades had been her foremost priority so she had refused to allow herself to delve into meaningless fantasies of fleeting romances. Yet the world seemed intent on shaking her resolve.

With final exams around the corner, she began staying behind at the library after school. Every day, she studied until the sky was orange with dusk and every day, she would find him at the bus stop with a duffle bag in one hand and his football cleats in another. They spoke from time to time to ward off the silence, trivial subjects like school and the weather, but his affable manner had all the effects of a warm cup of cocoa on a winter night, and she found herself answering his smiles with ones of her own.

It all changed on a rainy, April afternoon.

She gazed out the window in dismay. Heavy clouds hung in the grey skies and as soon as she stepped out, her uniform was soaked. He was already at the bus shelter when she arrived, vision blurred by the drops of rain that clung to her eyelashes.

"Looks like somebody forgot her umbrella today," he grinned.

She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and sighed, "It was sunny this morning..."

They stood a small distance apart, silent as they listened to the calming sound of the falling rain. His bus arrived first, sliding to a stop before them, splashing water in all directions.

He suddenly grabbed her by the wrist, his fingers shockingly warm against her damp skin. There was a hint of shyness in his smile and he quickly his umbrella in her hand.  

"You'll need this when you walk home."

"But what about-"

"You can give it back to me tomorrow." With a wave, he ran out in the rain and boarded the bus.

It was astonishing, how a deed so simple could make her realize her true feelings. The world around her remained the same but inside, she was in freefall, heart pounding with the absolute conviction that she was in love.      

***

It took them almost three years to make up for the lost time.

She doesn't remember when she began to think in we's instead of I's. Nor does she remember each and every kiss that had followed the first, only that they always managed to leave her dazed, as if emerging from a sunny dream. The memory of their arguments too, faded into the background because every hurtful word they uttered was eventually soothed by whispered apologies and gentle caresses. Though their love was a little too normal to be compared to a dazzling array of fireworks, she nonethless felt a wave of warmth whenever his arms looped around her waist and he gazed down with a soft smile that she knew belonged only to her.  

On the first day of summer, they woke up a little after dawn and set off. With windows rolled down and the wind whipping through their hair, they sang along to the radio as they drove down the empty highway. They arrived at the beach just as the sun crept above the horizon. The sea was an endless expanse of blue and the light sent bright sparkles across its surface.  

"It's so beautiful," she said to him as they strolled along the waves.  

"Why don't we find a place here, then?" He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. "We could settle down, start a family."  

"We could..." she murmured. It was so easy to imagine; waking up beside him to the sound of waves, running across the sand with his hand in hers, stealing kisses beneath the shade.  

Her eyes widened in surprise when he gently pulled her forward and pressed his forehead against hers. 

"Will you marry me?" His request was simple and straight-forward. They were past the point of bouquets and long-winded declarations. There was no need for material proof of their love; she could see it in his eyes and knew it was in hers. 

Her response was just as simple, just as straight-forward. 

"Yes." 

***

Each step down the aisle drew a memory from her heart. They burned with the brilliance of stars across a night sky, shining constellations that would guided her to the man waiting at the end of her path. The sounds of the orchestra, the frangrance of the flowers in her hands, everything faded into the distance as she walked closer. 

And when she finally met his eyes, she knew, without a doubt, that he was both the happy ending and the brilliant beginning of her story.