✓ nostalgia | jungwon

chapter 55.

     "These are uh- for you." The boy held up a bouquet of forget-me-nots. A strange choice, she thought. Those were the type of flowers you'd give someone you love. It was a promise to remember them, yet she remembered nothing of him.

     "I usually just put these on your table, but it looks like these old ones are dying anyway, I'll just throw them-"

     "Oh, give me that. I'll leave you two alone." Her father snatched the old flowers away, whispering something to the boy, inaudible to her ears. He left the room after that. Yebin wished he hadn't. There was nothing more awkward than being left alone with a stranger.

     Thinking he probably felt the same way, she decided to give him a small smile. A broad grin immediately stretched across the boy's face, and before she knew it, he was walking towards her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a tight but gentle embrace. She blinked from behind his back. Strangers didn't hug like that, either.

     Her arms instinctively hugged him back, and he sighed in relief. She could feel the smile on his face at that point, but what she really felt was this foreign warmth of comfort. His presence felt like home after a long trip, if her house was a place she hadn't called home yet. A peculiar thing, it was.

     "I-I'm sorry." The boy pulled away, visibly panicked. "I just- missed you, a lot."

     With that, he handed her the bouquet of forget-me-nots. Yebin couldn't help but stare at the flowers intently, wondering who on earth this boy was, and why he missed her the way he did. Surely, this stranger knew her somehow. In another life, perhaps. The thought seemed silly to her, and she let out a small laugh.

     Yebin looked up, really taking in his appearance for the first time. He was tall, with a lean figure that an athlete would have. His tousled dark hair looked like he'd ran a hand through it a dozen times, and there was a ghost of a smile on his face that revealed the dimple on his left cheek. From the way her dad said his name, to the respect he treated her with, that said a lot about his character. She smiled at him. "Thank you, Jungwon."

     The boy looked up, shocked. "What did you say?"

     "Thank you-?"

     "No, you- called me Jungwon."

     "Isn't that your name?" Yebin tilted her head at him, sure that she got it right from what her dad called him earlier. She glanced down at the name tag on his Sanheoli uniform to check. "Yang Jungwon?"

     "You-you remember me?"

     Yebin moved to shake her head, but stopped after seeing the look on his face. His eyes were brimming with a light that made anything else pale in comparison, while a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His words were laced with undying hope, as if he was already expecting the answer and was just waiting for her to say it. Her answer wasn't the one he wanted, but looking at him now, she'd never seen anyone more happy in her life. She couldn't hurt him. Surely, one lie could prevent that.

     And so, she nodded instead.

     The boy let out a laugh of disbelief, running a hand through his hair. "Ah, you idiot! You fucking scared me!"

     "Why?" Yebin asked. He seemed to have previously assumed that she wouldn't remember him. How someone could be sure of that, she didn't know.

     "I told you about that wish I made before. You were supposed to forget about me. But I guess you were right. Maybe the universe thought my wish was stupid and decided not to grant it."

     Wishes and ways of the universe? Those were two things straight out of her grandmother's fairytales of soulmates, things she'd blindly believe anyway. But wishes were made at seventeen, and she hadn't turned- ah, she remembered. That explains the calendar date. But, that would mean that for a whole year, she'd been in a coma. That didn't make sense. Then again, she had no recollection of- she paused, realizing there was a boy still waiting for a response. Yebin looked back up at him, trying to look calm amidst her frenzied thoughts. "Sounds like something I'd say."