continued from here \\ @phantombs
He feels her for miles. It's difficult not to. She's like a whisper of a breeze as it were, the ones he favors quite particularly, bogged with their honey and the salt off seas. He imagines her footfalls come sauntering out a meadow. He waits by its edges with its marigold bushes – and dares a step, corralled, evidently, by that soft, familiar ringing in his skull.
And it dawns suddenly upon him: birdsong, the one that trills dainty when the sun breaks fragile.
Oh, Cường knows spring mornings. Cường knows Yeongmi. He follows that fate-steeped pull, long surrendering to its call, and turns quick around the chintzy bakery. Where? he wonders. I know you're nearby. I know how you sound. I chase you sometimes. You know that. His eyes scour. The crowded streetside throbs. Is she out here bumbling and searching, too?
Yes. The music grows. A woman meets his gaze, startled, chest drumming with breaths, and the words again butterfly-swarm his head: familiar. I know you. Bright like sunshine and cool like rain. It's–
She bolts. Cường steps, slow and mesmerized, perhaps, as the birdsong in his belly rallies. It's been a while. Several whiles. She leaps, landing where his heart whittles away at its bony cage, and Cường remembers the smell of fire when last they were together. The crowd grants them berth. Her fingers brush his nape. His nose meets her temple, kissed by the sunlight she was wandering beneath.
Wandering, "All this time, to me?" he rasps, devastatingly soft. His arms wrap at her back, and her ankles hook before they settle back onto the earth. Are those tears? He won't question. "You made me wait a while. That's rude of you. Winter after winter, I sat about waiting."
For green. For flowers to bloom again. For sun on my skin and a laugh like swallows. He holds her tenderly. Her heart roars his, and he smells none of ash or fire. No goodbyes. Yeongmi: "Don't make me wait anymore."
Her memories return to her once adulthood hits; since then she had been looking. She’s still young, now, her body much more clumsy then her mind, aged suddenly with the recollection of who she was: alive again. Again. Alone.
Grasslands kiss her bare feet, the texture of different trees, flowers of different flavours. A home to her away from home. Traveling, looking, wandering, for a face she still had yet to remember.
Soft hands with roughed fingertips, tough from their connection to the soil.
Fresh bread on a simple Sunday evening. Citrus tea in her lungs and lavender on her lips. She knew it well. From somewhere.
He was here, somewhere her feet had danced her through the dew-kissed meadows, into the streets of an unfamiliar town. Everything was so different now. Her memories of the past, of coal, of hand sewn cotton, confused with her current memories of polyester, cellphones, and fast bikes. But she knew him. He was constant. The music grew louder, and the tug pulling her forward almost unbearable. Close. Somewhere. I’ve been searching for you. Where are you?
There. Hair black like the midnight sky, he was cool summer twilight even in the brightness of midday. She knew him. “Cường.” The name and the face connect and she runs.
And she clashes. And she hugs him. A familiar feeling, a comfort she had been missing. The last time she had felt these arms, her soul had been consumed by the heat of flames, choked by ash. Tears run down her cheeks, relief, sorrow, and joy bursting through her lungs at the voice she knew so well.
“I looked for you.” Wandering for so long. “I’m sorry for being late.” His face is tight. “Don’t cry.” Cường: “Dont let me go.”