The café was closing soon, but the lights inside still glowed warm against the rainy evening. Outside, the street was slick with reflections — headlights, signs, memories Rina had tried to leave behind long ago.
She stood under the awning, umbrella forgotten at her side, staring at the familiar silhouette across the road.
Kim Jae-Oh.
Youth had softened into adulthood on him in a way that still carried shadows. His posture was straighter now, his hair shorter, but the same controlled intensity lingered in his eyes — as if he was always bracing for something he’d never admit out loud.
Rina didn’t realize she’d taken a step toward him until he noticed her.
He stopped mid-stride. For a moment, he just looked at her — not shocked, not even surprised. More like someone finally seeing the thing he’d been quietly searching for.
The rain pattered between them.
“Rina,” he said, her name barely above a breath.
She swallowed. “You… recognize me?”
He stared at her in that heavy way of his, reading everything she didn’t want exposed.
“I’d know you anywhere.”
Her chest tightened — because it wasn’t a line. Jae-Oh never said things he didn’t mean. And somehow that made it worse.
They stood under the glow of a streetlamp, the years of distance folding in on themselves until she could almost feel the echo of who they were at seventeen: bruised, loyal, tangled in each other’s darkness.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“Work.” A pause. His gaze softened, though his expression barely shifted. “And you?”
“Passing through,” she lied.
He knew it. The faint tension in his jaw made something warm and painful twist inside her. Even after a decade, he still reacted to her dishonesty like it physically hurt him.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said quietly.
That was the problem.
Rina forced a breath. “Jae-Oh… it’s been ten years.”
“Yes.” His tone was steady, but there was a thickness underneath, like the weight of everything unsaid was pressing on him. “Ten years.”
She looked at him properly then — the subtle scar near his brow, the exhaustion beneath his calm, the way he still held himself like he was responsible for things that happened long before adulthood.
“You look the same,” she whispered. “Except… heavier.”
His gaze flicked downward, as if embarrassed that she could see it.
“You look…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Tired,” he settled on, though his voice held something gentler, something like concern leaking through cracks he couldn’t seal. “But stronger.”
A taxi splashed through a puddle nearby, breaking the stillness. Rina tightened her coat around herself.
“You didn’t call,” she said.
“You didn’t want me to,” he replied instantly, with that painful accuracy he always had when it came to her. “Back then… you needed to get away from everything. Including me.”
Her breath hitched. “And you just let me?”
His eyes lifted to hers — steady, dark, unflinching.
“I let you go,” he said, “so you wouldn’t have to run.”
The rain blurred the edges of the streetlight behind him. Something inside her cracked, quietly, like glass splitting along a fault line.
“Then why are you here now?” she asked.
This time, he stepped closer — slow, deliberate, carrying all the quiet loyalty he had never been able to hide.
“Because,” Jae-Oh said, voice low, “you’re not running anymore.”
Rina’s throat tightened so sharply it hurt.
Ten years apart, and somehow he still knew her better than anyone.
She exhaled, shaky. “Do you want to… stay for a bit? Talk?”
He nodded once — simple, but heavy with meaning.
“I came back for that,” he said. “For you.”