Chapter Text
“Your car’s at the garage?”, Song Hwa asked in surprise, casting a brief glance at her passenger before returning her attention to the road.
Ik Jun’s knuckles kept lackadaisically drumming the beat stuck in his head on the windowpane.
“Eo. It was making weird noises on my drive to the hospital the other day, so I wanted to get it checked just in case. Better be safe than sorry, right?”, he queried.
“Of course”, she agreed with an emphatic nod, her voice slightly concerned.
She was driving him home after their late-night band practice, the streets on their way uncharacteristically empty for a city as bustling as Seoul.
Ik Jun cleared his throat repeatedly, his hand absentmindedly reaching up to rub at his neck.
“Aigo. You sang your heart out like there’s no tomorrow until your vocal cords gave in”, she chuckled.
“What can I say? It’s my birthday, it’s only right that I give it my all”, he boastfully replied with an ego befitting for a band’s lead vocalist.
Song Hwa shook her head at the road, repressing the amused smile gracing her lips.
“But you guys are seriously crazy. To think that you’d buy me a guitar as a gift…”, he fondly recalled, the awe and disbelief he had felt upon their reveal before practice returning to his countenance.
“It was Jeong Won’s idea”, she commended humbly.
All four had chipped in when Jeong Won spontaneously produced the idea a month back, giddily showing them different models of electric guitars on his phone whenever they sneaked away from Ik Jun's sight at the hospital.
“Whoa, that punk’s more thoughtful than he seems”, he teased, as he took off his glasses momentarily and grabbed the eyeglass cleaner that was lying on her central console. He sprayed both lenses before rubbing the liquid with the hem of his shirt absentmindedly.
Her eyebrows shot up at his surprised tone.
“What are you talking about? Jeong Won’s always been thoughtful.”
“Pff”, he puffed as he glanced at her briefly before turning away, puckering his lips in a small pout.
He looked up at the sky through his window, marvelling at the full moon finally making its grandiose appearance from behind the brethren of clouds that had initially turned it into a blurry lackluster mass of light.
‘‘I wish it would rain’’, he said wistfully, his eyes willing the clouds to discharge their hidden reserves on them before his heart fluttered briefly upon reliving the fleeting feeling of her hand in his the last time it had rained.
Song Hwa hummed in agreement. “A perfect ending to a perfect birthday, huh?”, she concurred pensively as the car rolled slowly to come to a stop before his apartment complex.
Ik Jun turned toward her with a soft smile, grateful to share the last quiet moments of his birthday with her like this, a content, relaxed expression on his face mirroring the one he had sported on a halcyon morning where they shared breakfast in pure serendipity.
“Chae Song Hwa-sshi…gomawo”, he murmured, bowing playfully before reaching for the door.
Song Hwa opened her mouth, speaking what seemed like an after-thought.
“Wait, Ik Jun-ah”, she started, halting his exit.
“Hm?”
She hesitated, while his eyebrows lifted at her uncharacteristic silence.
“Open the glove compartment”, she mystifyingly prompted, her eyes shying away from meeting his questioning gaze.
He did as he was told and reached forward to grab the box and envelope that lied therein. A small, touched smile appeared on his face. “What is this?”, he asked, turning toward her with expectation.
She dithered. “What do you think it is? It’s my own gift. Saengil Chukhahae”, she offered with an uncertain smile.
Ik Jun swallowed nervously, caught off guard with the thoughtful belated gesture before characteristically recovering in haste.
“Awww, Chae Song Hwa, you didn’t have to!”, he exclaimed exaggeratedly as he pressed the gift to his chest, puckering his lips in that overly cute fashion he always went for to satisfy his flair for the dramatics.
She rolled her eyes at his magnified comicality. “You’re welcome”, she responded simply as she watched him furiously shake the box in a silly attempt to guess the nature of her gift. ‘‘Is it that watch I’ve been eyeing for a while!?’’ he prodded enthusiastically.
“Well, if it is, all that shaking must’ve scratched it by now, so…”, she daunted mercilessly.
Ik Jun’s arms froze in mid-air as he remedied by softly caressing the box, a silly attempt to undo the deed. Song Hwa shook her head at him in disapproval, although her tamed smile betrayed her fondness for his antics. His fingers laced around the ribbon, impatient to untie it before she suddenly stopped him.
“Yah, open it at home, I need to get back, it’s late”, she rebuked.
“But—”
“Out. Now.’’, she sternly demanded.
Ik Jun pouted at her petulantly. “Tch. Who knew you’d be so shy…Fine, I’ll open it at home, but give me a hint at least.”
Song Hwa huffed impatiently, weighing her options. “Here’s a hint: don’t come find me when you open it”, she ordered strictly.
“Don’t come find—Yah, is this a prank box?? Is it gonna spout white powder at me when I open it or something? Because if so, so help me God, I WILL come find you and you better believe there’ll be a hefty price to pay”, he threatened exaggeratedly, the words meant to be menacing meeting the unfazed ears of Song Hwa.
“I’m about five seconds away from throwing you out of this car.”
“Is this how you treat me on my birthday??”, he dramatically exclaimed, his hand landing against his chest in faux offense.
Song Hwa pursed her lips in deliberation. She suddenly turned to him, lips spreading in a saccharine smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Ik Jun-aaah”, she drawled, watching his distraught face double back as he eyed her up and down.
“What the—”
“Get out”, she seethed, the fake smile erased in an instant and replaced with a shuddering stone-cold glare as she clicked the button to unbuckle his seatbelt for him.
Ik Jun’s lips twitched in childish annoyance before chortling at her behaviour. “Arraseo, I’m out”, he surrendered, hopping out of the car. He lowered his head to level with the window, raising the present in his hand at her.
“Song Hwa-ya. Gomawo”, he said sincerely, a warm smile softening his eyes.
She nodded, throwing him a delicate half smile as she bid him goodbye with a small wave. He tapped the roof of her car twice before turning away, sauntering toward the entrance of his building with a pep in his step.
Song Hwa’s hands hardened around the steering wheel as she watched his retreating back, mentally counting the passing seconds as he walked away.
Hana. Dul. Set.
***
Ik Jun punched in his door lock’s code and sneaked into his apartment, careful to avoid waking up his family. He tiptoed into Uju’s room to lay a peck on his cheek before making it to his own room, sitting on his bed excitedly.
He just knew it was the watch he’d been eyeing for weeks and raving about nonstop to Jun Wan, immensely touched that she’d paid enough attention to buy it for him. He untied the bow with a gigantic smile on his face, already thinking of ways to thank her. But just before unboxing it in a foolhardy fashion without prior caution, he paused, narrowing his eyes at it in one last bout of remaining suspicion, stretching his hands far from his face. He thought he should open it at a distance just in case Song Hwa had somehow worked up the gall to prank him in any way.
Lifting the lid slowly, he let a few seconds pass before quietude restored his initial guess, the beam returning instantly to his face as his arm flexed back to bring the box’s constituents within his eyesight.
“Yeokshi, Chae Song Hwa!”, he preemptively yelled in a whisper.
Yet his eyes blinked a few times, trying to register what lied before them.
Huh.
Disappointment faltered the childish smile he was bearing as his eyes took in the first item sitting at the top, his face puckering as he held up a bronze-coloured hair tie in utter perplexity.
“Mwoyaa…Is this for me or for Ik Sun?”, he muttered, starting to think that it was a prank after all. His brows furrowed further when he turned it about, belatedly registering how shabby it looked, as if it had been worn in another era. He shook his head, ridding himself of the paralysing confusion as he gently placed the accessory on his bed momentarily to see what other items the present contained.
Ik Jun’s eyebrows shot up as his sight landed on an archaic flip phone, lifting it carefully as he finally cast the empty box aside. This he recognized, albeit belatedly, as the phone Song Hwa used all throughout medical school.
“What…She still had this?”, he mumbled to himself, an amused smile etching itself across his face, although laced with confusion, both at how this phone was still a part of this world and why she would be giving it to him as a gift on his birthday.
He flipped it open, curiosity getting the best of him, his incredulity deepening as the screen actually started to light up.
“How did she even charge this scrappy phone?”, he asked the air, letting out a breathy chuckle as he waited for the ancient device to showcase a shred of information.
And it did, after a few excruciatingly slow seconds, making Ik Jun’s eyes light up in alertness like this was some sort of treasure hunt.
But the boyish grin faltered at the sight of his name sitting on top of the screen in a text message the phone had opened onto, the last page she had left it on before turning it off. His smile regressed almost in slow motion with every word he read, his eyes widening with creeping alarm.
Sorry. Something came up. I’ll see you another time.
Ik Jun stilled, mouth agape, his eyes blinking back the tears that those fossilized words had instantly produced as his tongue rubbed against his palate. He read the text over and over in addled devastation before the remembrance of the letter still lying on his bed made it past the clutter in his head. Still clutching the opened phone, he grabbed the envelope in one swift motion before tearing it apart desperately to reveal the message lying within. His frantic eyes danced on the words enclosed in her letter as his thumb instinctively grazed a tiny, crinkled spot on the paper that had jaggedly dried up after having been dampened with the tear of its sender.
Because some things are hard to say out loud, no matter how many years have gone by.
I thought long and hard about what to gift you this year, and all the roads led back to this.
This being the reason behind my reply to you a year ago.
Ik Jun-ah, I’m giving you an explanation on your birthday, because I never received one on mine.
Every single cell in Ik Jun’s body froze in place, confusion clearing itself from his face as he was hit with realization at full speed, his memory piecing together the image of all five of them sat around a table with Rosa and Jong Su at the funeral of the latter’s wife. He vividly envisioned his past self, as if a wraith, stupidly dismissing her response regarding Seok Hyeong’s rejection, recalling how he had earnestly believed it a cliché excuse she used to turn their friend down gently.
We hear that all the time. “I like someone else.”
No, I really did.
His hand fell quietly to his lap, the heaviness of the two items weighing it down, as his eyes caught sight of the third article that he had earlier discarded, finally recognizing the mangled hair tie as the one he had offered her the day they met. The sight of it all stilted the breath that had barely managed to leave his mouth in its endeavour to escape the lungs collapsing in on themselves on the inside. His heart flamed, the immured hopes, regrets and disappointments of twenty years resurfacing in one go like a vicious volcano that had deceivingly pretended to be dormant only to erupt unexpectedly at nighttime, devouring everyone in their sleep.
His expression was the personification of confliction, as the tender and sweet knowledge of his sempiternal love having been reciprocated in equal measure confronted the bitter tragedy of the missed timing and the decades it had cost them both, cruelly keeping them apart from a blissful marriage that he had innocently dreamed of in his youth.
The acrid irony of the date of her birth coinciding with the death of their love physically pained him, flushing the energy out of his body in one swift motion. But his limbs weren’t the ones feeling lethargic. It was his heart, panting rabidly inside its cage, staring him down from the inside with raw desperation, pointing to the chain that was squeezing it lifeless, pulling it to the ground in homage to gravity. And as it let out its last gasp, the choked-up remnants of blood forsaking it, it beat just once more, so loudly, so savagely, its outcry reverberating in echoes in the labyrinths of his ears.
The wind pushed his curtains gently forward, as if expanding their lungs, reminding him to breathe, to inhale, let the air come in to ease the knots constricting his chest. But try as he might, only shallow, saccadic breaths could make it past the lump burning his throat.
Don’t come find me.
Ik Jun’s eyes darted toward the window as he pushed himself off the mattress and took a tentative step forward, then another, teetering until his hand could tremulously reach up to push the curtain aside. He looked down onto the street, desperately focusing his gaze through his glassy eyes, as a low gasp escaped through his parting lips when he confirmed that the car still sitting at the building’s entrance was the one he had exited minutes ago.
Hana.
Dul.
Set.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her rusty phone flipped shut in his grip as he clutched it with all the strength he had, like a leaky lifebuoy one would foolishly hold onto next to a sinking vessel with no lifeboat in sight. He turned away in a trance, shooting daggers at his door before he made a brisk start toward it, just as the car began to drive away, unbeknownst to him.
And he ran, and he ran, and he ran.
Like the devil was on his tail.