loose ends
yheunsoo:
what were the odds, really?
sure, the world’s small enough—for paths to be re-crossed, faces flickering into recognition, for nostalgia and memory to have the sway that they do over the plight of human emotion. a decade and then some is time aplenty to let bygones be bygones. but in this very moment, even the courteous space between the foot of his door and where she stood frozen suddenly feels painfully intrusive.
so much for going the distance.
“…right.” if it didn’t seem like it was possible to be more caught off-guard somehow, then there you have it. eunsoo’s eyes rove over his face, the newness of the pleasant nonchalance and the years that have sculpted it. a newer realization strikes in the wake of it: the last either of them had seen each other was through the grainy blue wash of a monitor screen. life had briskly moved on since—the who-what-where-and-when’s of anyone and anything reduced to nothing more but trite gossip at the odd school reunion, then nothing completely.
( ‘he got married a while back, didn’t he?’ ‘oh, yeah. that’s right.’ )
she shifts back by half a step, unsure of what to do and too certain of what needs to be done to escape this situation all at once.
that what? her mind lags, then races, lightning quick. the wine. “no.” a single syllable that cuts too sharp, too fast. why are you lying? “uh, i meant–” what are you supposed to mean? that this was for the person over at #280? over 60 units down? she catches a glint of ceramic and with full, bludgeoning confidence announces: “–it could be.” gesturing to the vase, “trade rare item for rare item, how’s that sound?”
like you shouldn’t have said anything at all, goddamnit.
in this peculiar case, he’s not sure of what to think—but seonho is almost sure that laughing (in the face of fate? irony? her?) is ultimately in bad taste. regardless, it’s obvious between the two who’s more surprised here. and so, spoils himself with a morsel (or more) of amusement at the price of kim eunsoo.
it’s funnier than it is shocking. maybe that’s the effect of time. of days and weeks and months ebbing away at old heartache. in his mind meeting eunsoo again—a moment he’s occasionally thought of the follow weeks and months and maybe even a year or two of their break up—had always taken place in somewhere mundane, cliche, you know, the standard meet cute. in a random hole in the wall he’s stumbled on for sweets, in a hotel lobby for a work convention, on the streets somewhere. one day, somewhere, again. like the fated do. in dramas anyway.
but of course, this is real life. and in reality, seonho’s long let go of the ideation of meeting kim eunsoo again. somewhere between the long months of workload piled after workload and the longer years of being brandishing a ring on his finger. so, to see her again now, at the foot of his new apartment after running away from everything that ever made him park seonho that he knows, that she knows—it’s funny. tickles something in the crux of his chest.
“no?” he parrots, brow raising high at her response, expression rightfully expectant for further elaboration. but who else would it be for? come on now... “ehh?” his head tilts, eyes lowering to his newfound favorite, now suddenly the subject in question. a trade? as if he hasn’t easily spent thousands on this—well, it wasn’t like she’d know—and gazing over the look on her face, it wasn’t like he’d turn her down either.
“sure,” he relents with ease, offering up the vase without much of a second thought. favorites come and go, but seonho figures he can relish this moment for a while longer if he played along properly. “but,” he waits for her to take the vase to speak, eyes flicking over her face idly.
“what are you going to give your new neighbor as a welcoming gift then?”