Hye-jae: Book 4

New Orleans Adventures Part 23

It hardly seemed possible that Hye-won was boarding a flight mid-morning and touching down just after lunch-time, gaining an hour with the New York/New Orleans time difference.  It also hardly seemed real that Seon-jae could be waiting for her, as she walked through the arrivals door but she scanned the waiting crowds - as she remembered doing years before in Freiburg - and her heart hopped in her chest when her eyes fell on his - trained on her, like she was the only person his radar could detect.  It felt like that moment in Germany replayed - when the world receded, noise faded, and their eyes rested in the joy of each other's features - before their bodies were drawn forward to close the gap between them.

Seon-jae stopped just in front of her and the love shining so strongly in his eyes lit her up and made her feel that hers was the only face he would ever want or need to see.  

'Hye-wona.'

'Seon-jaea.'

Both stood, gazing upon each other, with each remembering their sweet reunion and feeling that the intervening time was both an aeon and an instant.  Hye-won remembered how she had felt frozen in place by the tumult of emotions that had run through her when she had first seen Seon-jae - after their enforced separation of almost a year - until the thought of how much she had longed for him when locked away had propelled her forward into his arms.  Seon-jae recalled his utter amazement, not only that she really was there - in front of him, in real life, rather than an ephemera of his mind, as she had been for many months - but also looking so beautiful, beyond what his feeble brain had remembered.  And it had frozen him in place too - though his body had trembled and his breath had rushed from him - until she had made the first move into his arms and the familiar shape of his love - warm, vital, there - in his arms had been the catalyst for him to move again.  

She looked and he looked and they knew what was going through each other's minds.  With a wry smile, she stepped forward to lay her head against his chest and with an answering smile she knows, she always knows he enfolded her gently in his arms and laid his head alongside hers.  Eyes closed, they remained like that, travellers deviating around them - like water rushing over stone - while the couple revelled in the glory of warmth and closeness and being together, the simplest and most complex of sensations.  

---

'Ah, this is the life.'

Seon-jae stretched back on the grass - eyes closed, arms providing a cushion for his head - and Hye-won took advantage of the moment to gaze in silent admiration of his relaxed features.  Open, the lively energy in his expressive eyes always drew her in and made her forget herself but lidded, the seductive, almond shape and thick lashes were also sweetly beautiful.  He looks so like Seon-won when he is asleep - a total heart-stealer.  

A lazy, sexy drawl met her ears.

'I can feel your eyes eating me up, my love.'

She giggled.  Cutie.