It was a trick of the light, a visual fallacy, a complete hallucination… save for the fact that this person looks almost exactly like the cute little French girl he hung out with a decade ago. Memories he could only recover in that moment disorientated him for the entirety of that afternoon. But then it turned into two days, then three days, and even after a week, he couldn’t stop trying to catch glimpses. Each time cataloging a feature or two. ‘She still has a squish-able face.’ He smiled at the memory of her laughing, and maybe he was looking on through rose-tinted glasses, but it was a memory like no other. Yet despite it all, Changkyun still wanted to figure this out without having to make a fool of himself by asking. He did that once or twice before under his father’s instruction—at the airport, mind you, where no one really judges you for asking—so this time was different. It was that strange phenomena where you could do whatever thing for someone else, yet couldn’t for yourself. He smacked his face and dragged his hand over it. ‘Not the time to cringe at myself.’
Changkyun mulled over his options as he slid down the unquestionably filthy wall. They wouldn’t keep him for more than a day, he thought, not without sure evidence. No candid photo existed and the video was far too blurry and unrecognizable to account for anything. But now that he was thrown in campus prison, security guard office, or whatever it was called, he could see how simply asking would’ve been more productive. Or better yet, learn to let go of old memories. Since at the end of the day, that all happened in Europe, when they were like ten, and they were different people now. He thought with a blank stare, almost contemplative, but mostly void of expression. Even so, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like if he could’ve stayed in France.