Elephant
Daylight waned and dusk came sooner and sooner each day. Like the leaves that drifted from the limbs of trees and fell in scattered heaps around the stone base of the hanok, things seemed to just fall into place.
Opening night was a huge success. Aside from a few small hiccups and Glinda the Good Witch's minor wardrobe malfunction, the show went off without a hitch. Several parents expressed how pleased they were with the outcome and with their children's positive experience to Mrs. Kim, who redirected all the credit to Jisoo.
When word got around of how good Jisoo was with the children's program, the school district asked her if she'd like to take on a temporary-to-permanent position as an elementary after school drama club coordinator. She figured she had nothing else to do, and the summer program had been such a fun experience. Jisoo took the job.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Kim heeded Boyoung's advice and spoke to the head doctor at the elderly care home. After about an hour or so of talking and negotiating, she came away with an agreement to let harabeoji stay there for a discounted rate. She would still need to find new piano students quick to make up the money, but with Jisoo now collecting paychecks from the school district, the Kims didn't worry too much about not being able to afford the care Harabeoji needed.
As for Jinyoung, he and Jisoo were like milk and cookies again.
Next up on Jennie's reunion itinerary was an overnight camping trip. It had gone smoothly enough. Aside from Yugyeom almost drowning in the lake during a race (Mark rescued him, everything was fine). And Jackson's pants catching on fire (Yugyeom ended up dousing the flames with his shirt, which was still wet from nearly drowning). And Jennie almost fell of a cliff (thankfully, Jaebum had fast reflexes.)
Jinyoung and Jisoo shared their nonsense song about Mr. Cactus Head with the group, and it turned into their fireside anthem.
Then, there was an after-hours evening of self-guided tours and themed cocktails at the Natural History Museum. Which turned out to be somewhat disastrous since a handful of their former classmates got smashed and destroyed a reconstructed Homo Erectus skeleton. Jinyoung and Jisoo were exploring the taxidermy hall when they heard the clamor. They ran around the museum looking for Jennie to report the damage, but no one had a clue where she was.
The evening was practically over by the time they saw her emerge from the gemstones exhibit with Jaebum behind her. Jinyoung felt a wave of catharsis overwhelm him at the sight.
The activities kept on coming: a pirate-themed escape room activity that reunited Jisoo with her high school dramas family. They lost the game, though, since none of them could solve the last math equation that would open the final door.
"You fucking useless Thespians," Bambam joked, shaking his fist dramatically at the drama club when they came in last place.
Next came a build-your-own-burger night at the 50's diner. Jinyoung and Jisoo experimented with using waffles instead of brioche buns. At the first bite, they turned and looked at each other with wide eyes, wondering if they had just invented something new.
Then there was a movie night under the stars, during which Jennie and Jaebum mysteriously disappeared again.
In between the activities, Jinyoung and Jisoo continued seeing each other.
"Jungah, you already had a chance to pick the game last time," Jisoo said. She had her shoes propped up on a desk, and she was leaning back as she watched the newly formed Elementary Drama Club argue over which improv game they wanted to play.
"But if you let Sojung pick, she'll just want to do Understudy again!" Jungah complained.
"That's because it's the one everyone is most familiar with!" Sojung argued. "You only ever want to play Narrator!" After her stint as the Wicked Witch in the summer program, Sojung the Shy had come out of her shell and was even voted drama club president.
"How about I teach you guys a new one?" Jisoo suggested to calm the tension in the room. She stepped off her seat and taught them a new game, "I Can Do It Better." She had a couple of players start the game by improvising a scene, and then instructed the players on the side to jump in and shout "I can do it better!" and then take one of the players' place and demonstrate what they could do better.
"I can be poetic about the SAT's better!"
"I can slap Minseok better!"
"I can imitate a drone better!"
"I can beatbox better!"
"I can speak German-sounding gibberish better!"
Instead of arguments, the room was filled with laughter, and Jisoo sat back and watched as her young protégées improvised hilarious scenes. The gaggle of sheepish kids had come a long way since the summer program, and it was gratifying to see just how smart and sharp these kids really were when they were allowed to drop their guards and let their creativity run wild.
It was around this time that Jinyoung appeared in the classroom doorway with a laptop tucked under his arm. The children didn't notice him, and neither did Jisoo.
After a couple more minutes, Jisoo started to applaud and the children followed her lead.
"Okay, awesome round, guys!" she said. The kids scattered and started to collect their things. Sojung spotted Jinyoung in the doorway, and her mouth spread into a Cheshire grin.
"Hey, Miss Jisoo!" she said. "It's your boyfriend!"
Jisoo whipped her head around to see what the hell this little girl was talking about, and she saw Jinyoung standing there, waving stupidly at her. The other little girls giggled and started to surround him, beckoning him into the classroom. Jisoo straightened up and shook her head.
"Mr. Popular over here," Jisoo joked once all the kids had cleared out of the room. Jinyoung blushed.
"What can I say?" he said. Jisoo was putting her things into her bag, and he took a seat at one of the low desks that was in front of hers.
"Whatcha got there?" Jisoo said, noticing the laptop he'd brought with him. All of sudden, he looked nervous.
"I've been... working on something," he said hesitantly. He laid the laptop down on the desk and then opened it. Jisoo saw a music production software program open on the screen.
"On a song?" Jisoo asked, sitting down. "Dude, that's great! Can I hear it?"
"Why do you think I'm here?" Jinyoung fished a pair of earbuds out of his pocket. Then after untangling them, he plugged into his computer and then handed them to Jisoo.
"Just keep in mind," Jinyoung said before hitting the spacebar. "I haven't so much as touched a new song in years, so it's going to be horribly apparent that I am rusty. And, yes, I'm probably going to be a little sensitive."
"You're such a baby," Jisoo joked. Regardless if she liked it or not, she was just happy that he was writing again.
"Just play it, let me hear it."
Despite the tone of jest, Jisoo could see in his body language that he was nervous. His hand shook as he pressed down on the spacebar and played the song. It began with a soft, faded instrumental and subtle baseline, and then there was Jinyoung's soft, echoing vocals, with a falsetto line layered beneath.
I came back from being so far
Past the times I thought would last forever
How have you been? I missed you
Sadness falls from your eyes
Jisoo looked up at Jinyoung, who was watching her face intently as she listened. His body was tense and she could practically see him shaking with anticipation of her reaction.
His voice in the track repeated the chorus: I'm coming home, coming home. The song was sorrowful and hopeful all at once. It was emotive and melancholic, and she'd never heard his voice sound so wistfully sad and hauntingly beautiful at the same time. The lyrics sounded so personal. She pressed her lips into a thin line. Jinyoung noticed, and he wondered what it meant.
She paused the song and pulled one of the earbuds out.
"It sounds good," she said. Jinyoung raised a brow.
"Really?" he asked.
"It sounds... really different from anything else you've written," Jisoo said. "More... mature, I guess. More... emotionally complex. What's it called?"
"'Coming Home,'" Jinyoung said. He looked down at his hands and smiled. It was his real smile this time. It came out more often now. Jisoo turned to the computer and was about to play the song again when he spoke:
"You know," he said. "Your grandfather talked to me in the hospital while you were talking to your parents."
Jisoo raised her brows. "Oh," she said. "He did? What'd he say?"
The look on her face made him realize that she was worried Harabeoji had said something inappropriate. But he waved his hands to assure her that it wasn't anything like that.
"He talked about writer's block," Jinyoung said. "I said that I hadn't written music in a while was because of writer's block. I said it like a joke, but... it was true, too. When we all went off to college, I just couldn't write anymore. Musically, creatively, I felt stuck."
Stuck. Yes, that was exactly how he felt. Stuck with a major he didn't like, a girlfriend who didn't like him, and a job toward which he had only lukewarm feelings. Stuck in a distorted version of the life he imagined for himself. No writing, no growth, no music.
The last thing he wanted to do was make Jisoo feel guilty. It wasn't anyone's direct fault, as far as he knew, but he could almost exactly pinpoint the start of this stagnant feeling to the last day of summer five years ago. She didn't say goodbye, and when she left, she took the music with her.
Jinyoung swallowed.
"Harabeoji said that writer's block is what happens when you don't live your life honestly, and you won't be able to move on until you go back and fix what's wrong," he continued. "It got me thinking about myself and the kind of life I had in Seoul. It wasn't all bad, but in some ways, it felt like I was going down a road that I wasn't meant to be on, like I took a wrong turn somewhere. Coming home... feels like a chance to go back and take the right turn."
"Overcoming writer's block," Jisoo said gently. "That's a very good way to look at it."
Her stomach churned. She could feel him steering the direction of this conversation dangerously close to the memory of that day. Images of the sky and the sea were rushing back to her, and she was trying to stop it.
"Your birthday is coming up," Jisoo said, wondering if that would change the subject. His brows shot up, and the air cleared.
"Ah," he said, nodding. "That's right." Truth be told, he'd forgotten.
"So, what are we doing?" Jisoo asked. She crossed her legs under the table and accidentally hit his shin with her foot. She felt him shifting in his seat. He looked down at the desk and grabbed the edge of it.
"I'll actually be leaving on that day," he said.
Jisoo widened her eyes. "You are?"
Jinyoung nodded. "My plane flies out of Seoul on the 24th, remember?" he said. "Minji and I are over, but I do still have that job in New York, I've signed the contract already and everything."
"But," Jisoo uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. "You just finished saying that coming back here felt like a chance to take the right road, are you really heading back down that way, again?"
Jinyoung sighed. "The convenience of being paid is too valuable to just throw away," he said, switching his voice to one that was steady and logical. "I'll need to have something before I can jump straight into a recording arts career."
"That's... very true, I guess," Jisoo conceded. A smart move, she supposed. It wasn't as if he could wake up one day and decide to throw away everything and become a music producer. Even successful music producers didn't start out that way.
"Accountant by day, music producer by night," she said.
Jisoo didn't know why she was feeling so upset about this. Of course, Jinyoung was professional enough to keep his work life separate from his relationship with Minji but... still, she had thought that now that they'd broken up, he'd be free to stay here. Free to fall in lo—
Stupid, she thought. Of course, he had to honor his contract and his other commitments. What kind of friend would she be if she tried to pull him away from those things? She would be sad to see him go, but... she supposed that at least she had these past couple of months to remember him by.
Jinyoung gave her a gentle smile. He reached over and tipped her chin up with his hand.
"Don't look so down," he said. "I'm going to New York, not North Korea."
She smirked at him throwing her own line back at her. His hand lingered on her face for just a beat too long.
"You said so yourself," Jinyoung said, holding her gaze. "Now that we're back together again, I'm not letting you go."
The days started to bleed into each other. Jisoo could hardly tell each one apart from the other. Life was like a reel of film blinking across her vision, a thousand distinct images becoming one and leading her closer and closer to the end of summer.
Jennie spared no effort in preparing the final event in their five-year high school reunion: it was to be a formal gala held on a yacht that would sail from the harbor. The sun was setting earlier and earlier each day, so Jennie asked everyone to be at port by sundown, around 6 pm. In true form, Jennie had appeared on the boat much earlier than everyone else to walk around the yacht and make sure everything was in order.
She was rushing around the port side deck, holding the skirt up on her sleek, strapless navy blue gown that showed off both her tattoo sleeves, barking orders at waiters.
"Light those candles!"
"Wines on one side, liquor on the other!"
"There's a puddle here! There can be no puddles! We're gonna have girls in heels, wipe those puddles, Jimmy!"
"Can someone get the DJ an aspirin?"
Their friends started to show up, and Jisoo realized that she hadn't ever seen her classmates dressed so sharply. The men showed in suits and the girls in sleek gowns. It felt very grown up.
The captain came by to find Jennie and ask her to have everyone boarded and briefed on emergency procedures by 6:15 pm so they could be back in time. She sent Jaebum down to the docks to tell the girls to stop taking pictures and get on the damn boat already.
Meanwhile, Jisoo was up on the top deck, checking to make sure that all the tea light candles there had been lit, as per Jennie's request. When she looked up, she saw that the yacht was starting to pull out of the harbor, and she heard her classmates on the lower deck cheering. She lit the last of the candles and then made her way down to join them.
The DJ started them off with upbeat music to get the party started, and Jisoo squeezed past them to find Jennie.
"Alright, all the candles are lit," Jisoo said. Jennie looked over her head like she was counting the number of guests. Jisoo grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
"Jennie!" Jisoo said. "It's the last night of reunion. Quit worrying and just have fun!"
"Quiet, I'm trying to see if I ordered the right amount of souvenir gifts," Jennie said, and Jisoo laughed. Then, she turned and looked over at their classmates, too. She smiled contentedly. The scene gave her flashbacks to their senior year, the last time they were all together.
"Have you seen Jinyoung?" Jisoo asked.
"Huh?" Jennie said, still crunching numbers in her head. "Shouldn't you know where he is?"
Jisoo blinked. "I was lighting candles, I didn't see people getting on," she said. "He got on the boat, right?"
"Jaebum!" Jennie called, and the former baseball captain walked over. "Did Jinyoung get on the boat?"
"I didn't see him," Jaebum said. "I... just assumed everyone was already onboard."
"Oh my god," Jisoo pinched the bridge of her nose. "That idiot. I told him to be here at six."
"Apparently Jackson didn't hop on, either," Jennie said, happening to look down at the log book.
"Maybe you should have told them 5:30," suggested Jaebum.
"Do you guys have cell signal out here?" Jisoo asked them, but both Jennie and Jaebum shook their heads.
Jisoo didn't even know how to react. The irony was almost Shakespearean: Jinyoung returning home to attend the final reunion event just to be late to the docks and miss the boat. She looked out at her dancing and drinking classmates, at the gorgeously decorated yacht, and thought of how beautifully tragic the night had turned out to be, and it was only six in the evening.
That idiot.
Then, suddenly, a crowd started forming on the starboard side of the deck. People were pointing at something in the distance.
"What the fuck?" Jennie said, pushing past Jisoo and Jaebum to check out what all the commotion was about. Jisoo followed her to the railing, and when they looked out over the darkened waters, they spotted a tiny sportboat trailing the yacht. Behind the wheel was a sailor with a dusty gray beard, and beside him stood two men wearing black suits beneath their bright orange lifejackets.
Jinyoung and Jackson.
Jisoo didn't even know how to react. She stood and watched, shaking her head, while Jennie sent Jaebum over to the bridge to tell the captain to stop the yacht. Then the sport boat pulled up the side of the ship and a sailor helped Jinyoung and Jackson climb on board. Their clothes were a little wet from the ocean spray, and they tossed their lifejackets back to the gray-bearded sport boat sailor.
Amazing, Jisoo thought, still shaking her head.
Jinyoung and Jackson made their way over to the stairs and climbed the steps up to the top deck, where all their classmates were waiting for them. As soon as he stepped onto the deck, Mark handed Jinyoung a glass of champagne and clapped him on the back, and then he did the same to Jackson. Jinyoung straightened out his suit jacket and then looked around at all the familiar faces and smiled.
And then his eyes landed on Jisoo.
She was a vision in a sleek white gown that hugged her figure. Her dark hair provided a stark contrast to the pearlescent fabric and the smoothness of her skin. It was curled and pulled to one side of her head.
For many years, being Jisoo's guy friend meant he had to check himself whenever thoughts of her beauty crossed his mind. Tonight, though, he chucked all that bullshit out to the wind. She was dazzling. His heart was shaking.
"I can't believe you just did that," Jisoo said, suddenly bursting out laughing. "I told you! Six in the evening, be here."
He shook himself out of his stupor. "Jackson needed a ride, and then we had to stop for gas," he explained. "But then we forgot which dock we were supposed to meet at, I lost the invitation, and nobody here had cell signal... anyway, I'm here, aren't I?"
Jisoo laughed again.
"I'm glad you're here," she said.
Suddenly, Jackson appeared at their side with a devilish grin.
"Hey, Jisoo," Jackson said. "Look who's here." He motioned at the crowd with a sideways nod, and Jisoo looked in that direction. She wasn't sure what Jackson was talking about until she saw Bobby Kim talking to Lisa by the dessert table. Jisoo face palmed. When would they ever let this old crush die?
"Hey, Bobby!" Jackson shouted.
"Shh! Jackson, what are you doing?" Jisoo grabbed Jackson's sleeve and gave him a shake while Jinyoung was trying to hide his snickers. Bobby Kim looked over and saw Jackson beckoning him to come closer. He put his drink down and obliged.
"Oh my god, he's coming over here," Jisoo said. She no longer had a crush on Bobby, and truth be told, she never really did like him that much. She just offhandedly mentioned one day in high school that she thought he was cute, and everyone just ran with it.
"Hi, Bobby," Jisoo said, still unable to believe Jackson had done that.
"Hey," the boy said with a smile. "How are you guys doing? It's been a while."
"It has," said Jinyoung. "Can you believe Jennie Kim planned all this?"
Bobby laughed. "Right?" he said. "I was sure that after graduation she was going to pack her bags and chase down Mumford and Sons, but here she is working for the school district."
"Just goes to show that high school isn't the whole story," Jisoo said.
"Hey, you know that Jisoo had a crush on you in high school, right?" Jackson said, and Jisoo immediately smacked his arm while Jinyoung turned away to laugh again. Bobby blushed and nodded.
"Well, I didn't know," he said. "But I had my suspicions."
"Dance with her, will you?" Jackson said. "Last night of the reunion, make her high school fantasy come true."
"You don't have to," Jisoo said, her face growing redder by the minute. "Ignore Jackson. We usually do."
"Actually, I'd love to dance with you," Bobby said and then immediately looked to Jinyoung. "If you don't mind, that is."
Jinyoung looked down at Jisoo and then shrugged and smiled. "I'm cool with it if she is."
Jisoo just laughed because she didn't know what else to do. Jackson was right, though. This was the last night of their reunion. For better or worse, these people's lives had crossed, overlapped, and intersected hers. They lived and learned and grew and failed and succeeded side by side, and every one of them had left their mark on her life. And they would be saying goodbye to each other again very soon.
"Sure," Jisoo said, shrugging. "Let's dance."
Jisoo let Bobby lead her over to the dance floor, where the DJ was playing a mid-tempo song and other couples had taken to the floor. While Bobby was spinning her around, she say that Jinyoung had wandered over to Jennie and asked her if she wanted to dance. Jackson had done the same with Lisa.
The wind was blowing the salty breeze into their lungs and the stars and the moon were their lamps. She figured that for tonight, she may as well live in the moment.
When they got tired of dancing, everyone grabbed their drinks and gathered on the pool deck to reminisce and talk about where they were at now. Someone accidentally pushed Rose into the pool, and then Yugyeom jumped in to save her, and then someone joked that Mark ought to go in and rescue him again.
Jinyoung told them about his new job in New York and endured their accountant jokes. Nayeon had apparently started her own cupcake business. Jaebum was a high school baseball coach now and was thinking of moving back in town to take care of his aging father, though people joked that he was really thinking of moving back to be closer to their class' representative goth girl.
Jisoo told them about Los Angeles, about the time she accidentally read the male character's line during an audition, about the time she stole Joe Jonas' smoothie, and about her nightmare roommate who almost set their house on fire. Jennie regaled them with gossip about their former teachers, information that she gained after five years of working for the school district. Bobby had interned for the United Nations in his junior year of college, and he was going to move to Geneva in January to take on a job.
It was amazing to see just how far each of them had gone in the span of five years. With all of them sitting together and talking like this, Jisoo was reminded of the way they used to sit together during lunch and talk about their dreams, their imagined futures. She was happy to see that so many of their friends and classmates were close to reaching their goals.
That was the general feeling shared by the group of alumni there. They could feel it radiating off each other, making their hearts glow with bittersweet melancholy. It was a cliche that they never thought they would feel so keenly, high school being one of the best times of their lives.
They found their way back to the dance floor as the DJ switched over to his slow setlist.
Couples found each other again. Mark and Nayeon were both dating other people now, but they figured for old time's sake, they would dance to one song. Jennie, who was never too keen on doing what people expected of her, gave up her pride for the evening and let the baseball captain and most popular boy in school take her hand.
Jinyoung caught Jisoo's eyes from across the room. He wandered over to her side and didn't have to say a word before she held her hand out and let him lead her to the dance floor.
Once they were facing and holding each other, they settled into a loaded silence and let the music move them as it did.
In a way, it was starting to feel like the moment that they almost had at Boyoung's wedding. That tender stillness they had fallen into at the end of the dance. JIsoo's heart pounded: slow and steady, strong and sure. She could hear her breathing syncing up to his.
She and Jinyoung had done a lot together. They once fell asleep side by side on the rug in his living room. But being this close, being able to count his eyelashes and breathe his air and sway together while Nat King Cole crooned a love song felt like the most intimate thing they had done together yet.
"Jisoo," he whispered after so long. "Are we ever going to talk about that thing?"
He felt the exact moment that her body tensed beneath his hands.
"What thing?" she asked. He swallowed.
"You know what," he said. "The thing. That happened down at the end of docks five years ago, on the autumnal equinox. The elephant in the room that we've been pretending is just the wallpaper."
Her heart rate sped up. "Oh," Jisoo said. "That thing."
Jinyoung looked at her face. It was impossible that she didn't remember. He had waited all summer long for her to bring it up, but it was becoming obvious to him that it was the one subject she had been avoiding all this time. He had to know. He needed answers. He no longer wanted to keep going back to that moment and wonder what had happened and why it had damaged their friendship.
He could sense her fading, building up her wall again. He had to reach her before she shut him out again.
"Don't you remember?" he asked. "You kissed me."
Time seemed to stop. Jisoo let out a deep sigh.
"You didn't," she whispered.
Jinyoung swallowed a hard lump. "Is that why you stopped talking to me?" he asked. "Is that why you left for Los Angeles without saying goodbye? Or saying anything at all?"
That summer had been one for emotions. It was the summer of their senior year. Their classmates were leaving. He knew that graduation would be bittersweet. It was a time for saying goodbyes, for going away to chase after dreams and leave behind childhood things.
But he didn't realize that he would be saying goodbye to her, too. He wasn't prepared for her to just cut off all communication.
Inwardly, Jisoo was frantic. She didn't know what excuse she could give that would satisfy him.
"My life was so different in Los Angeles," she said. "I was a different person, things just got out of hand, I lost touch with a lot of people."
Jinyoung clenched his jaw. Not good enough.
"Yeah, but... even me?" he asked.
She was his best friend, his whole world. When he thought he lost her, everything crumbled. Still, Jisoo said nothing. Could she really have been so upset that he didn't kiss her that day that she decided to cut him out of her life completely?
"Jisoo—"
"Let's do an acting exercise for a minute," she said, cutting off his words. She finally looked up and held his gaze captive.
"Pretend you're me," she said. "And you've had these feelings for someone for... I don't know, maybe even from the beginning, but you bottled it up because you didn't want to complicate things. So you just watched and you waited for your chance, then after years of standing by his side, you finally found the courage and the heart to take that leap."
She swallowed.
"So you kiss him," she continued, her eyes taking on a far-off look as she finally let herself revisit that memory in all its heartbreaking glory.
"But then he just sits there," she continued. "Frozen like a statue, and then stares at you like you grew a horn on your head, then all of a sudden he can't meet your eyes. Can't even look your way. He closes up and turns cold and stiff."
She felt it again, that awful, ripping sensation that she felt as she sat there that day, waiting for Jinyoung to react.
"Did you do something wrong?" she said, still speaking in scenario. "Did you misread the signs? Wouldn't you be humiliated, too? Wouldn't you be hurt? What did you want me to say?"
Jinyoung didn't even realize that they'd stopped swaying and had just stood there in the middle of the floor. He sighed. So, that was it, he thought. His suspicions had been confirmed. He didn't kiss her back, and then she panicked and ran away.
"You could have told me anything," he said. "I wish you would have said something, anything. Anything that's not just... silence. But that's what you gave me for five years."
Jisoo remembered the couple of weeks and months when she arrived in Los Angeles, and Jinyoung still sent her texts and calls and tried all sorts of ways to contact her. But the wounds she bore were still too fresh and new, so she maintained her distance. She drove herself into her work, instead. She didn't know that on the other side of the world, Jinyoung was lost without her.
Their friendship was the wonder that held his life together and the stars apart. When she went away, she left a gaping wound in her wake. A hole that he tried to fill with work and distractions and other people, other girls. But the hole was shaped like her, and nothing and no one else fit there like she did.
"I'm sorry," Jisoo whispered.
She did feel terrible about leaving and not saying goodbye. If she could go back, she would have done it differently. Maybe she wouldn't have kissed him at all.
But the fact was, she felt like she had to. In the moment, it felt like the only right thing to do. All their years of waffles at the diner and choreographing dances and playing piano duets, these things had to have been leading somewhere, and she followed that road all the way to the autumnal equinox. It made sense to kiss him in that moment. They made sense.
"Jisoo, you've gotta understand," Jinyoung said. "You were leaving. You were going to Los Angeles, you were moving across the world."
Jisoo nodded.
Or perhaps there was no such thing as sense, no such thing as fate. And therefore, no such thing as right or wrong roads. Perhaps they were all just here on this earth, randomly and stupidly traveling through time doing random and stupid things that were of no consequence to any concept of fate or destiny at all. And whether or not love visited a pair of friends was just a stroke of sheer, dumb, blind luck, which she and Jinyoung didn't get.
"Well, I'm back now," Jisoo said. "And this time, you're the one leaving."