Thy Art | Park Seonghwa

0.2

15 minutes. That was how long Hwang Yunhee had stood waiting for her cab to arrive, mentally cursing to herself as the clock ticks. With every second that pass, she neared herself to running late yet again for the millionth time in her life.

The wind blew, hitting her face ever-so gently as the heat from the sun has an idea of its own to blare itself out. People in the city were hustling and spring afternoon had yet to feel so lively in a while for the brown-haired girl standing by the side walk. Daegu and Seoul really do differ in some way. She thought to herself. It had felt like a mistake for her to order her ride at the last minute. Now as she's 18 minutes in and have only seen the small yellow car approaching, she knew the person waiting for her was going to once again, sigh so hard at her face, it could knock her out.

It took another 20 minutes for her to arrive at her designated place. With the cash she has pulled out from earlier, she quickly paid for her ride before hopping off. The bell rings as she opened the door to the ice-cream store. Her eyes scanned the room for a specific red hair, only to find him with both his airpods plugged into his ears, sitting at the corner with his own pair of eyes, fixated on his phone. She strides through the store and finally took her sit across the now-strawberry –looking boy.

A small expression depicting a surprise came upon his feature, but it soon subsided and he pulled out his airpods to greet her with a smile. "After 5 long years, you're still late to everything."

Yunhee rolled her eyes as a respond though in her head, she had admitted the said fact so hard. "Give me a break, Joong. I'm only 30 minutes late." Kim Hongjoong waved his hand, signaling a whatever before asking her to pick out an ice-cream before they start talking and probably get carried away with it. A sense of awkwardness hang in the air for a while after she came back with her cup of strawberry cheesecake flavored ice-cream. There was a moment of silence where both of them had only sat and picked at their own dessert.

"So, when did you come back?" The lad broke the silence, making the latter looked up from her ice-cream which had become more and more interesting by the second.

"Around a week ago," she answered, leaving with yet another trail of silence behind. But this time she took it upon herself to break that and ask, "how's everyone doing?" The boy across her seemed to hesitate for a second before putting his spoon down and lean back on his chair.

"We're fine," he shortly responded. Yunhee had expected more to his answer, and it was made obvious as she stayed silent after but her pair of orbs didn't budge. "Yunho and Mingi is still as lovesick as ever. They opened up their own dance academy recently. San works part-time as a taekwando teacher while Yeosang is now a pharmacist, apparently. Wooyoung is still trying to figure out what he's going to do about his art degree. Jongho and I work together once in a while when we both have the time. He writes songs, I'll produce them alongside all my other projects." Hongjoong eyes the woman sitting before him, how she went back to look at her cup of melted goo. It may have been 5 years but he could still easily figure it out when she's all dilly-dally.

"That's good to hear. A lot changed but at the same time, it seems like everything is still around the same orbit," a small awkward chuckle was emitted from her lips and soon Yunhee could feel Hongjoong's eyes on her as he tried to take in as much of her expression as possible to depict what she's feeling. That has always been the thing about him; always trying to fathom things without being mistaken.

"I'm not going to tell you how he's doing unless you ask," he pointed out. As expected, he stayed blunt. She couldn't lie to herself, even after all these years, she still wondered how he's doing, what he decided to do, and whether or not he's still the him back then.

"How's... Seonghwa doing?" she queried with her voice low.

"He's doing okay. Mr. Park promoted him to CEO last year after he graduated and he's been occupied with all the work that comes along," before Yunhee could utter her next question, the latter had quickly cut her off to answer, "and no, he doesn't know you came back. Yet."

Yet. Hongjoong had said that as if he was going to tell Seonghwa as soon as he could meet his best friend. But what could she do when they are literally the closest of friends and he couldn't keep anything away from him. She nodded her head slightly to indicate her understanding. The air was too tight around the two, but thankfully after the topic of Seonghwa, they were both able to alter the topic to something lighter. Hongjoong had asked what she studied and what degree had she earned. He questioned her plan of staying here and she told him how she currently work a few part time jobs to fulfill her needs.

It was a normal catch up session for a while. For a good 45 minutes to say the least and it had started to feel like old times. But the awkwardness welcomed itself in again when the red-haired boy decided to ask her the one question she knew would lead to a million. "So you have a daughter now?" It hadn't came out like a joke which had startled her. Like it was so obvious the baby looked so much like her it couldn't be anyone but hers. And what did she expect after the post she made the day before?

"I do. And before you ask, it's a long story," that had crossed out all the potential question that should've came her way.

"What's her name?"

"Hwang Eunbyul."