Jiho was towel drying his hair dry when he heard the bell ring followed by a knock on the door and with a mumbled swear word or two he grabbed his dressing gown from the back of the bathroom door and shrugged it on over his t-shirt and boxers. If it’s Kyung, there to fill him in on the most recent argument he’s had with his wife then Jiho’s going to kill him, he swears to god he is. He doesn’t have it in him to act marriage counsellor again,  not when he’s fresh home from catering a wedding and not when he has a double shift in a stiflingly hot hotel kitchen to look forward to come six am. That’s someone else he’d happily throttle right that second he thinks as he heads down the hall, Lee Minhyuk. If he hadn’t been inconsiderate enough to come down with the flu then there would be no need for him to be awake at five to be at work for six. His friends are the worst.

He has a hand on the door handle when the knocking comes again and frown deepening he yanks it open, ready to tell Kyung he doesn’t have time for his , he needs sleep but the words never come. Because the person at his door is not Park Kyung.

“Uhm…” he says instead as his brain tries to process what he’s seeing.

 There’s a woman standing in front of him. She’s petite, very slight, about his age he guesses. Her hair is shoulder length, choppy, dyed blonde. She’s pretty, big eyes, high cheekbones. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that looks too thin and threadbare to combat the cold. There’s a rucksack at her feet and most confusingly a toddler in her arms. The little girl (he guesses girl, she’s wearing a denim jacket with the words Hello Kitty scrawled across the back but he could be wrong) looks no older than two years old and is fast asleep. He doesn’t recognise either of them.

“Woo Jiho?” the woman says tentatively. She knows his name but is looking at him as if she doesn’t quite recognise him either.

“That’s me.” He confirms. He’s about to snap ‘who are you?’, tiredness overriding any manners he might have but then he notices the look in her eyes and he stops. There are tears threatening to fall and things are weird enough as it is, he doesn’t need it to go from stranger on his doorstep to weeping stranger on his doorstep. So he tries to keep his voice quiet, his tone gentle “I’m sorry…” he says, “... but do I know you?”

The woman sniffs and her reply of “Yes you do,” is a little shaky but to Jiho’s relief no tears fall.

And she does look familiar he concedes as he tries his hardest to work out where he might know her from. He fails. “I do? From where?” he asks.

The woman gives a wavering smile. “We were neighbours for about ten years, don’t you remember?”

“Neighbours.” He repeats, thinking hard. And then it hits him. “Wait. No… Eunseong?” but yes, now he has a name to put to the face he doesn’t know why he didn’t recognise her right away. They met when they were seven or eight, her family had moved in across the street and it didn’t take long for his mother and hers to become friends. And since their parents were friends they’d ended up friends too, they hadn’t had a choice in the matter. Jiho hadn’t minded, as much as his brother had about having a girl for a friend it wasn’t so bad. Eunseong liked the same things he did, music and drawing and pokemon, she was smart and she was funny and she was always happy to go along with any ridiculous plan he might come up with even though doing so landed her in trouble more often than not. They’d made it through school together, graduated together. Grown up together really and they’d stayed friends that whole time. And then his parents had decided to downsize. Jiseok had already moved out, they figured it wouldn’t be long until Jiho flew the nest too, they didn’t need so much space anymore, it made sense. He and Eunseong had agreed to keep in touch and at first they had, but talking once a week soon became once every few weeks then once every couple of months and without Jiho noticing they’d soon stopped talking altogether. It must be three, maybe four years since he’d last seen or spoken to her he surmised but after being friends for a decade he really should have recognised her. “Sorry.” He said, feeling more than a little stupid. “Of course it’s you. I just… your hair's different?” he ventures. He's never seen her blonde before.  Maybe that was why it had taken so long for it to click. And then there was the kid in her arms… that was enough to throw anyone off.

“So is yours.” Eunseong points out and he finds himself running a hand through his own hair, also blonde. They match he realises and he smiles. “It suits you.” Eunseong tells him and he mumbles a thanks.

There’s an awkward silence then as Eunseong looks at up at him as if waiting for him to continue and he looks right back at expecting her to give him some clue as to why she's there. In the end it’s Jiho who breaks it. “Um… want to come in?” he asks, gesturing over his shoulder and Eunseong nods. He picks up her bag from the floor and steps back, letting her into the apartment. There are other questions he should be asking her but there's a draft in the hallway and the little girl in Eunseong’s arms doesn’t look any more appropriately dressed for winter than she does. The question can wait until they’re both in the warm.