"narahuyo" | YJW

One

It was the first rain of summer and Jace thought she had forgotten the scent.

She was supposed to attend and help the church today, speak in behalf of what's written in the book, and be the prim and proper she's always been. At least within its sacred walls. Or within the invisible walls of her life.

She watched as the sky's earlier continuous cries now turn into nothing but sobs, along with visiting lightnings. She's supposed to be home for a school work due tomorrow, and a few asking of where she's been. Getting up from her seat outside 7/11 shared earlier with people waiting for the rain to pass, she wishes the rain was longer.

She turned after crossing the street, pocket fidgeting hands making sure she had her lighter in place. She doesn't. Still, she turned once more. Still taking the longer route to buy time although with no hope for a session.

She found the route a few years back, she was fifteen, and she had failed to deliver her uncle's two sticks of nicotine as rain started flooding the then cratered road, poor and ugly, always taking the form of a lake when it rains. Not to mention it was a hard day.

How do you define a hard day?

Is it bruised feet from walking to and fro for after school clubs, after school sweats and hearing the people who are most likely to be raising you starting that day from your doorstep decide about your future because apparently, your mother who had failed to finish school, that fall being you, now has just figured out her own. Which leaves you, literally, dumped like a pup. Not even a chance of tossing you over the other culprit who was wise enough, you still think he is, to skip the frame early.  And pretending to arrive later to make sure they do not know you know, them offering you your usual afternoon snack as you enter the door.

To Jace, it meant that.

To Jace, time spent choking on smoke is so much better than it going down the drain along with the queries.

She picked out her only stick, slipped it between her forefinger and thumb before her lips. Tasting mint she never grew to like. She didn't really plan on smoking today. But she needed coins for church and it was her best resort. She was about to slide it back to her pocket when another vendor walked past her, covered in an improvised plastic cellophane from the previous rain, giving her hope.

No one, at least she's aware of, really takes this route. So she comes around the area. There she settled on the dark stairs of the closed establishment. 'FOR RENT' says the sign in clear red paint, when she heard someone climb the stairs down.

Jungwon had just finished talking to the commercial space's previous occupant, their family business expanding at the bigger location, and he could almost smell cigarette. Turns out it wasn't the hunger for one.

The girl, he could tell despite her hair hidden behind her cloak because of her white floral dress coating the last step, turned to face him feeling his presence. He slowed down.

It was odd.

Wanting to set aside a puff when it was all he could think of as he talked upstairs, wondering how a smoke would fit the weather so much. Now that he has all the time in the world, his brain could only tell him to stop. Watch as the stranger place it between her lips and them almost meeting for the release, now eyes on him, sending him into a mental haze that has him wondering what her name could be, just to wonder some more if he would ever see her again.

Would he? If he doesn't move now, he wouldn't.

He didn't.  And he's known to never change his mind.

To Jungwon, there's always this obvious yet unconscious line you give people. You do not meet them first.  You meet a thought of you that you think would fit them.  You pick how you will see them. And although it is beyond their hold, there is always the disappointment.

Jungwon didn't want to be disappointed. He wanted his own line. Even when he feels she carries so much more as she bring her cigarette down. She doesn't smoke much he figured. Because how else would she have kept her raw strawberry lips, a shade obvious than her cheeks? Jungwon watched as another blow carry her sighs.

Still, he walks past her. Hands inside the pockets of his hoodie as he bounce at the last step, the girl wiping her dress off the concrete tearing her eyes off him. Maybe he still wasn't safe from disappointments.

His feet walked straight to his car, accessing the passenger seat in no time, and something brushing his skin at the sight of his pack, and at the feel of the stranger on the back of his head.

Jace, almost finished with her own, watches as the stranger raise one to his lips. Back still on her. He looked some more. Jace was aware what it meant.  And although she doesn't like lighting people's cigarettes, she needed to reconcile whoever is watching for her skipping church today.

She first dusts off her butt from the stairs, walks straight to the guy unnoticing of her arrival, and taps his back lightly. Already unable to void an image of his broad shoulders off her conscious. His head turns, lips part at the contact almost dropping the cigar, and his boba eyes are hard to skip when you look this close.

Jace knows staring is rude, but the stranger is doing the exact same thing.

"Lighter?" she offered, although nothing is in her hands. The stranger is yet to notice this. Still, he nods.  And the reaction has Jace wanting to pinch herself for trying to do God's work.

It was pain to move around his watch.

There is the hunger for a yes.  Will his voice give justice to his perfectly painted eyes? But she couldn't wait any longer. She could only suck her breath as his surely unfairly beautiful eyes travel from her hands reaching for what's between his lips, his mouth agape voluntary to the unspoken order; to and only her lips as she connect its tips and breathe her own, igniting flame to the unlit.

It was one of the rarest moments when she lets herself thank the skies and the slow flow of time.

Not wanting for it to move when it's all she's been waiting for all the years she could recall.  And like any other questions, she throws it somewhere her mind had managed to carve to protect her peace through the years.

Jungwon watch as she step back, urging for him to now redeem the consumable stick which he does. And before she could move farther, he offers his "thank you," in his unique voice texture.

Jace, at five, always knew cotton candies taste unthinkable despite never having the chance to try it, being always ensuring that her existence is never a bother to the elders. Still, tasting it herself had her young skinned heart wanting to explode. It was the joy of another child in taekwondo uniform's almost finished piece offered to her maybe out of pity.  Although she makes it a mental note not to ask people for anything, she accepts it because clearly, she did not ask for it.  And it was free.

She remembers noting how it tastes so much better melting on her lingua than how she had imagined.  And it just made everything so much better.

She could almost taste it today. Sweet and raspy.

But then it starts pouring again. That has Jace covering the top of her head and stepping back once more remembering she needed to be home before six. She offers a nod to the stranger as farewell.

The melted candy seem to be growing wings in her stomach.