[2] Red | Mingi ✓

three | the one with the salt

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IT WAS HER FAULT IF the universe never took her seriously. If all she did was duck and cower when these signs were getting thrown at her. It pointed out that Mingi's reinstatement in her life (where she lived, what she did, how she lived and did) was not a second chance. She knew that. Up until the next day after his visit, where he drank grapefruit juice and she got too comfortable, sprinkling teeny crumbs of the new her as they chattered—Mint was not a fan of this one guy at work because he kept stealing her thunder. (Or so he thinks that I despise this one guy at work because he keeps stealing my thunder.) When Mingi came knocking again later that day, Mint saw a light, she heard an heavenly host, she was yanked out of her body.

   In any case, she wanted him. BAD!

   Mint accepted her fate. A curse that had her cast into the eternal abyss of love unrequited. It was painstaking that she could even dare hoping again.

   She wasn't going to kick-start where they left off, instead Mint was gunning for newness. She wondered what'll burst forth from the loins of this woman's spontaneity. (She was the woman, she was spontaneous. Fighting!) This was where Mingi would see a new her and have no choice but to give in to the fresh-out-of-the-oven brand of the girl he used to know. And then she'd be Ariel the brunette, he'd be her redheaded Prince Eric taking her in his bosom, twirling her about (once, twice, thrice, they lose count—she gets dizzy!) and set loose from the hold of evil forces against their beautiful union as man and woman, and he tells her: "You're the one. The one I've been looking for." They could seal their affection with the crude touch of lips...

   Maybe—

   Mint didn't know, she feared thinking so far when she was still here daydreaming, because the moment she bucked back to real life, she was wary and watchful. Behind every Song Mingi was a Mint Park anxiously biting her nails. Mint Park the friend.

   She froze in the middle of the hallway, forgot when she stopped staring into space with a dreamy fantasy vibe, and decided to take action. Mingi's door was a couple feet away. When she knocked, there was no turning back. Mint knew, and it was horrifying, the sheer thought of it. But: she was this woman, she was spontaneous. (Fighting!) Meant she didn't lay out plans, and instead she reasoned with her brain stuck between her ass cheeks.

   And she did. The small distance to his door was filled with nos and yeses, 'do it's and 'don't do it's. Something was tickling the length of her spine, trailing downwards: it was sweat. Then her knuckles were rapping on wood.

   Mint did not ring the doorbell. This was her knocking on destiny.

   "In a minute." At the voice, her hand hung midair, her blood running cold fast, she became ghost white. But ... maybe she'd just heard a ghost. The hall was now chilly.

   If only she could have the type of second chances cousin Hwa was endowed with. That he could screw up, philander and, in the end, have the one he had the audacity to two-time, the love of his life (he claimed) running back to him. Hwa even got balls to propose a second time. His victim wasn't scared of setting the new date for a second wedding. Sonny was neither worried nor apprehensive when she woke up every morning to the diamond band snug around her finger. It was the second time Seonghwa was proposing, it was the second time she sobbed into her cupped palm like it was the first time. How did she get to trust so readily? How did Hwa get to luck out that easily? As much as Mint cherished her cousin, she prayed Sonny would at least think to stand him up, send a picket flying that read #karma'sabitch #S.O.B, because he was a son of a bitch (bless his soul, she loved him). But then it most likely deemed him fit to relate best with the unbitching karma that she refused to smother him with such ill luck.