∆ Cross My Mind || ChaeDa [ © honeyeji ]

02

Dayeon once signed up for a literature-philosophy-amalgamation analysis class for fun, which she ended dropping after three lectures. She mostly didn't want to deal with cryptic emails that said things like "admit that the NARRATIVE has a VOICE" and "HONOR, not OBFUSCATE" and "GOD is DEAD? Due tomorrow." She never got CC-ed out of those threads when she dropped though, so occasionally she gets emails, and tries not to think too deeply about them.

Today's email states "the HEROES are in the WRONG story" and Dayeon stares at it for a touch too long. Has she ever felt like she's in the wrong story? All her life, Dayeon's had one goal, one path. While the other girls in her high school classes avoided the question of majors and careers, Dayeon embraced those questions easily.

When Dayeon met Chaehyun at a party, they were both sipping flat coke-and-rums. Chaehyun was bouncing along to the music, some hype remix of a top 10 Billboard song, and she leaned over and said, I like your shoes.

Dayeon immediately looked down at her scuffed tennis shoes, doodled on with gel pen during particularly boring lectures, in an infinite pattern of blossoming flowers and smeared eyes, unblinking. Maybe it was the coke and rum, more coke than rum, that made Dayeon turn to her and say, "Thanks, it reminds me of my father."

Chaehyun's eyes widened and she turned to her, body language indicating that she was fully interested in what the hell Dayeon just said. Dayeon stared at her shoes, hard, silently asking her unblinking eyes why she just said that.

"Your father reminds you of flowers and eyes?" Chaehyun asked, her trail of subtle eyeliner visible with her eyes so impossibly round. Dayeon got the sense that she didn't belong in this quintessential college setting, with the ever-growing collection of alcohol in the kitchen, people laughing and flirting and dancing and kissing to the bass-boosted pop music, the lights punctuated by LED strips and strobe lights. Chaehyun was bathed in pretty pink lighting when she leaned in close, her breath sweet, and said, "Wait, are you Dayeon?"

Dayeon opened her mouth, then turned on her heel and ran.

As it turns out, Dayeon's late-night trips at the nearby bakery, with her requests of iced Americanos with vanilla shots, made her a conspicuous character to the staff, namely one cashier who often filled in night shifts for her coworkers, Chaehyun. Dayeon had willingly turned over her name to that cashier for the better part of most weeks. And Chaehyun, mind like a steel trap, remembered.

When she returned to the bakery, wearing a mask and a black hat, dressed in an oversized black hoodie and matching sweatpants, it was Chaehyun who took her order, wavy hair tied back with a velvet scrunchie, grinning at her.

"Dayeon with the daddy issues?" Chaehyun asked, and punched in her order for her before Dayeon could even get a word in.

Dayeon blushed. "I was drunk when I said that. I think I tend to lie when I'm drunk." And apparently, she lies when sober, because that coke and rum definitely did not make her feel a thing. If anything, she tells the truth when she's drunk. In actuality, it's pretty girls that make Dayeon say weird things, and Chaehyun is the prettiest girl she's ever seen.

"Right," Chaehyun said, a tiny smile pulling at her lips. Her bangs weren't evenly arranged. Dayeon beat back the urge to fix them for her. "Your order will be ready in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you," Dayeon says weakly, and awkwardly waits by the counter. The eyes are slightly faded, thanks to three hours of Dayeon furiously scrubbing at them in a sink. Hopefully, they won't persuade her to say weird things next time.

"I'm Chaehyun," Chaehyun says while she pumps a shot of vanilla flavoring into Dayeon's Americano.

"I know," Dayeon says, and then hastens to add, "your nametag."

Chaehyun looks down at her nametag and looks up again to smile at her.

"I don't have daddy issues," Dayeon blurts, looking at her shoes, and those goddamn eyes. She doesn't know what else to say. She's definitely going back to the sink to return her scrubbing after this.

"Good to know," Chaehyun says, and eases a plastic lid onto her takeout cup. "Americano for Dayeon?"

No one else is in the bakery. Dayeon smiles a bit and takes the cup.

"Hey, Dayeon?" Chaehyun asks. Dayeon turns and looks at her.

"You're my favorite customer. Don't be such a stranger."

Dayeon nodded furiously, pulled on a push door, and then tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. Doubtlessly, Chaehyun saw everything. And yet, the next night, when Dayeon arrived with cleaner shoes, the gel-pen eyes fading more and more, and ordered a slice of carrot cake with her coffee, Chaehyun doesn't say anything about her weirdness yesterday.

And then the next day, coffee and cake to eat inside the bakery, and Chaehyun left her place at the cashier station to sit with her, chatting amicably about their classes and trying to see if they had any professors in common. That's how their friendship developed.

So how is it that Dayeon knew she didn't belong at that kind of party, in that kind of environment, but she found Chaehyun there? Can heroes be in the wrong story and yet, find the right person?