First Meetings

Siwon's Story

I met her on the departure lounge of Incheon International Airport. She was crying, sobbing fitful tears really. I asked her if she was okay quite insensitively because I don't know what else to say.

She looked at my direction, rubbing her eyes with the back of her right hand that was also clutching a red pen. Her left arm was on her lap holding a notebook.

"Oh...” she tried to speak and blew her nose with a newly acquired tissue. “Don't mind me. You see, I just killed my love interest." And she was sobbing again. My scared to dumbfounded look may have been obvious as she glanced back and smiled through her tears.

"Aaaww... it's not that thing you're thinking." She was not laughing. "I know I can be so vague. I'm writing a terribly heartbreaking scene for a novel. See, I'm a writer and obviously too affected by my stories." She was now showing me her notebook filled with red ink and splotches from her tears.

I sat next to her during our whole flight to Singapore. She seemed oblivious to my presence then, only randomly looking up from her notebook to stare off into space or the window or to me on the other side of the plane while briefly nodding politely to me when she notices that I was looking back at her. Then off she went to writing again.

She was, what she's writing, was magnetic really. There was something poignant and calming as I watch her slave away to her muse. And I lay watch as an observer to this beautiful union.

I couldn't keep away much longer. I had to find her after she did not return my call two weeks since returning to Seoul. I gave her my card, she didn't give hers. Or most like she didn't have any to give away by looking at the only thing she was holding was her notebook and pen. Her eyes then still glassy and groggy of the four-hour trip and writing marathon. She didn't even know my name.

We met again in the company a month later. She was seeing the boss for what I heard to be a management/publicist agreement; she and her works has gotten more popular by the day.

I finally spoke to her again during the company's Halloween party. She was a Hazel Grace then. While I was Harry Potter. One of the Harry Potters actually since Leeteuk and Yunho hyungs were also dressed up as Harry.

She was the first to call me by my full name when I purposely knocked over her O2 tank.

She refused when I asked her to dance citing the O2 tank accessory and 2) the fangirl complication, then 3) the two left feet classic alibi. It was only when Mr. Sooman pulled her and me (Thank you hwajangnim!) from the bar counter that we were 'forced' to dance. I couldn't say that I wasn't happy. Only that, the first song was a slow dance. Everyone else has coupled up while she removed her shoes.

"Are you ready, Siwon-ssi?" She asked. "I'm not really good at dancing. Frak, I don't even know how to dance! So you do the dancing, okay?"

Then she stepped on my foot! Her right foot on my left and her left foot on my right. And oh yeah, we were too close to each other then. I could hear and feel her breathe just near my neck.

I look at her in the eye, smiling, as she tilts her head back avoiding a full-on collision of our faces. "Shall we dance?"

It was like the moment on the airplane then. I was the writer, she was my muse.