My Greatest Award (나의 제일 좋은 상)

Talk

As I drive over to my usual grocery store, quickly reaching familiar roads, I ruminate over what Rosie had talked to me about at lunch.

"You meant a lot to her. You still do, I bet. I was there with her the whole time when... when it happened. She was really hurt when she found out."

I consider the idea of dropping by her dance academy to talk to her, but I quickly shake the thought. For one thing, I don't even know where it is; the people who do know seem to be pretty tight-lipped about it. Plus, it's been so long, I don't know if she'd actually want to talk to me. Even if we somehow bump into each other, it would probably be tense. Way more so than how it was with Rosie earlier.

At the grocery store, I end up having to circle around the place a couple of times before I'm lucky enough to catch a white sedan inch out of its parking spot right in front. Talk about luck. It takes me a couple of tries to park properly though; my front parking's never been that great, and the black BMW in the parking spot next to mine is a little over the line. Judging by how expensive it looks I really wouldn't want to accidentally scrape it with my car.

I mindlessly enter the grocery store and start collecting some supplies in one of the medium-sized trolleys available, after wiping the handle down with some sanitary wipes. Having come to this store regularly over the years I've lived here, I practically know the different aisles and the merchandise they display like the back of my hand. I push my trolley over to the aisle that holds jarred and canned foods, humming the chorus to Past under my breath; after listening to it over and over again at home and in the studio with Rosie, it's no wonder the song is stuck in my mind.

The aisle is empty, save for all the jars and cans stacked upon the shelves, and a relatively tall, casually dressed woman. I only catch a glimpse of her shoulder-length ash blonde hair covered by a blue cap, her back turned to me as she browses the canned food on the shelves. As I park my trolley along the shelf opposite to her, she looks up at the top shelf. She attempts to pick what looks like canned tuna from the shelf, but she fails at doing so despite her decent height.

I walk over next to the woman and grab the can of tuna the woman had been reaching for. Her face still covered from the side by her straight hair and vaguely familiar cap, I hand the can over to her.

"Here, you wanted this, right?" I say with a polite smile at the stranger. A smile which fades immediately as the woman turns to look at me, her face mirroring my obvious shock. My heart leaps out of my chest as my eyes meet a pair of eyes I haven't seen in years.

It's Lisa.

Minutes pass as we just stare wordlessly at each other, barely moving. My mind races to come up with something to say; the situation's only getting more and more awkward the longer we say nothing.

"H- Hey, Lisa," I stutter despite my best efforts to hide my uncertainty.

"Hi," she replies meekly after a few more seconds of silently staring. "How've you been?"

"I've been..." I trail off unknowingly. I slap myself internally when I come back to my senses. "Good. I've been good. What about you?"

She nods in response. "Same." All the while our gazes don't leave each other for a second, like we're both fixated on the moment and unsure if it's a dream or not.

"I haven't seen you around here before," I state dumbly. "What brings you here?"

She takes her eyes off of me for the first time in what felt like hours, and looks at the can in my hand. "I was looking for wet food for my cats, but the pet store I usually go to was closed, and the grocery store near my place was out of tuna."