september 2, 2022
10:20 p.m.
myshuno international airport
in a strange sort of way, grant is grateful it's this specific flight that is taking him home. a pilot in uniform walking through the cabin invites attention. when he commutes, eyes tend to draw his direction—some nervous, some curious, all conveying this unspoken thought: "you're meant to be up front behind an impenetrable door, not back here." he doesn't mind the looks; every now and then they lead to real conversations, people capitalizing on a rare opportunity to have a captive audience with someone in a career most know little of or, alternatively, fear. it's just that tonight, he's not so sure how much energy he has left to be "on." as much as he adores his job—again, he's too appreciative of it to complain—it has been a long week. between bits and pieces of flight attendant drama, days upon days of terrible weather in disparate parts of the country, nettlesome maintenance problems in multiple planes, and overly soft hotel beds continuing their habit of hurting his back, he is ready to just sit down for an hour, do nothing, then drive to his own house and sleep in his own bed. and that's what everyone else on board wants; to go wherever they're trying to be, then go to sleep.
the last two open seats are indeed all the way at the back. a girl occupies the window seat, a blue baseball cap obscuring her face as she fixes her gaze out the open window at the sea of lights streaming across the airport grounds. grant unlatches the bin above him and shoves his suitcases in the remaining space. either his shadow in the aisle or the sound of him opening and closing the bin stirs her attention; she doesn't look up, but he knows she knows he's there.
"sorry. you had this whole row to yourself, and then i showed up." he can't help it; it's an innate reflex, prattling to diffuse any tension. realistically, the faceless girl does not care one bit that he'll be sitting opposite her in the aisle seat, but still. grant is grant, and there's a brief moment where he convinces himself he's intruding on someone else. "i pinky promise i'll sit on the end and be very quiet."
the click of his seatbelt overlaps the exact moment the stranger stops short of a full sentence.
"uh. grant? is that you?"
is he still wearing his badge? normally, he takes it off as soon as he's off the clock. no, he had taken it off, and then he'd put it away in his jacket pocket after the pilots kindly refused to check it. even if she were reading it, the badge reads joseph grant o'sullivan, and she'd have no way to know he prefers grant over joseph by written word alone. no, no, it sounds like she recognizes him.
in another odd beat of synchronicity, he turns to face her and try to place her face and voice to a name and a memory just as she says something else, something that hits him like a ton of bricks.
"what's with us and public transportation?" her next words are in korean and half-buried in a fit of giggles. "really, what the hell?"
the universe is either a magician or a 3d printer. he'd thought of her earlier—momentarily, when hannah inquired about his love life—and now she's here, materialized next to him. yunha, the girl he'd met a year ago in a seoul karaoke lounge, the girl who lingers sometimes in the back of his mind, the girl he's wished for months he'd been braver with. yunha, right there, an arm's reach away, taking stock of him and blushing a shade of red so distinct and vibrant it glows like a supernova in the black of the night.
his face is probably doing the same, if the white hot tingle in his cheeks is any indication.
grant tries to express anything halfway intelligent, but the only thing that cobbles together in his mind is: i like your hair. but telling someone he's only seen once before and long ago that a bob is charming on her is arguably not the smoothest move.
"hi," he finally manages. an otherwise bland greeting is also not smooth, but it is, if nothing else, not overly blubbering or sentimental…or embarrassing.
she's still bright red. yunha cups a hand over her mouth and waves with the other. "hi."
a peaceful silence falls between them for a few moments. grant's brain diverts away from anxiously trying to make conversation, and the pair sit gazing at each other, sitting with the reality of their chance encounter. mathematics was always one of grant's strong suits, but decoding the numerical odds of encountering yunha right here right now would take him forever to figure out.
was all the bad luck this week leading up to this? was this meant to happen?
no. that's silly. there's no such thing as predestination. probably.
"i didn't know you were…" yunha's hand slips from her face and suddenly gestures at his uniform. she stops short of finishing her sentence again, this time interrupted by dissonant bark-like squeaking noises echoing through the cabin from underneath the plane as it pulls away from the gate. grant wouldn't have registered the sound at all, were it not for it making yunha's entire body shudder. "shit. i don't like flying. usually, i knock myself out with medicines, but i didn't bring any."
"it's okay. i think most people are like that. i mean, regarding the flying bit. i can't speak to the commonality of using benadryl or whatever else puts someone to sleep." never mind, he is going to have one of those conversations. that, too, is okay; grant is pleased to make an exception tonight. "that noise is totally normal, though. it's a good thing. it's supposed to happen. you're hearing a pump equalizing pressure between the different hydraulic systems, and we like that. that's what we want. we like functional hydraulics."
she nods the entire time he's whipping up the simplest explanation he can come up with, but the abject fear of being on a moving airplane doesn't quite leave her face. she's quiet for a good while again afterwards, lips sealed shut as if to hide how her teeth are— certainly—chattering. she does, though, keep her body angled towards grant; there's a glint in her wavering gaze that tells him, "you know what you're talking about, and you're the only one keeping me sane right now."
later, the chime signaling the plane's arrival at one-zero-thousand feet and the resultant movement of flight attendants down the aisles at last seem to make her relax a bit. they are, like the sound of the hydraulic systems working, signals that mean relatively nothing to him either—not unless he's flying, then it's his responsibility to send those "all clear, go ahead with service" messages to the cabin crew—but to yunha, they're an immediate reminder that she is not actively dying in a fiery crash. he doesn't press her on what she's afraid of, but he assumes like most other nervous fliers, she anticipates just about every moment of the flight as a precursor of her doom.
a flight attendant hands them both cups of water upon walking by, and swallowing the entire cup's worth in no more than five seconds tops steels yunha's resolve to talk again, apparently.
"so, you're…" she's staring at him, and seems focused to his clothing.
"i am," grant replies coolly, assuming she's resuming her previous statement, "i kind of was not when we met before, but that's a whole thing. that's a long story."
"and you're here because?"
"i'm just going home. i work in chicago, but i live in detroit. what are you, uh," he says, dancing around asking point blank why she's not thousands of miles away in her native country where he'd seen her last.
yunha's hands finds its way to her mouth again. underneath her delicate fingers, she's blushing again. "you live—oh. funny. haha. i also live there."
"i moved there last march."
march. march? right. he'd met her in september, so…
"my aunt owns a restaurant," yunha continues, "she offered me a job and some room at her house last year."
she's been here next to him all this time?
she quirks an eyebrow skeptically. "i doubt you ever went there. it's in the suburbs."
"try me. i live out in the suburbs."
"boseong. i'm sure you can guess what kind of food we sell."
if he weren't propped up by a seat, grant might have already melted into the floor.
"you've got to be kidding me. i have been there so many times."
yunha gives him a curious yet knowing smirk. "what days?"
"always on the weekend because i go with my friends, and that's when they're free. do you perhaps remember the guy i was hanging out with at the karaoke place?" grant suddenly feels the need to chug his cup of water, too. all this time… "um, so, he knows the owners, who are, i guess, apparently your aunt and uncle. their son was his college roommate. they're friends."
"ethan is your friend's friend?"
at that realization, they both can't help but laugh uncontrollably.
"so, are you off on the weekends? you are, aren't you? holy shit. that's why i've evidently never seen you around."
yunha flutters her lashes sheepishly.
"oh my god. yunha, am i hallucinating?"
yunha is the restaurant owner's niece. the single niece henry's mother mentioned. the cousin ethan has discussed in passing multiple times; the cousin ethan said had recently moved in to work at the restaurant but had gone back to korea for a visit; the cousin who is into music controls the playlist at the restaurant.
that cousin was yunha all along, and somehow it checks out in hindsight.
"so, we're not hallucinating. are we just stupid?" he asks, pinching the bridge of his nose.
open-minded, remember? your motto. open yourself to this.
grant could have rectified his mistake of walking away, letting her go, this whole time. no, no, he can rectify it now. second chances. he'd gotten lottery win lucky with his job. he may not believe in predestination, but if it is real, this is it. this rather fateful meeting is it: a second, maybe last, chance. he can do this. he can try again.
