Serendipity

Chapter 1

It feels strange to be sitting in the corner of this specific café with my best friend, watching as people enter and leave with their orders. I'd been planning for this day for a few years, making that damn trip bucket list, but hard as I've tried to think that doing it would come true, it seems so surreal now that I'm actually here!

As I sip on my coffee, I look around at the décor. My bias's face isn't really seen here, but the one picture hanging on the wall is staring straight into my soul. If I ever get to see him in the flesh, I think I'll just pass out! But that's a dream, one that I don't think will ever come true. My gaze lands on the memorabilia on the shelves across the room.

"Hey Leeza, I'll be right back."

My bestie just waves her hand at me dismissively and continues to scroll through something on her phone. Knowing she heard but won't miss me, I stand up and walk to the bathroom, stopping to look at all the memories on display along the way.

I stare at everything, taking it in slowly. I want to reach my hand out to touch each thing, but don't dare. That would be so disrespectful on my part. I even catch my hand hovering in front of one of the hats. Seeing how close I am to something he had touched makes my hand tremble, and I yank it back. I wrap my arms around my waist instead, squeezing it as a reminder to stay respectful to these things.

I continue on to the restroom, dabbing some cold water on my cheeks and neck to cool down the heat I feel gathering there. When I'm done, I walk back to the table where Leeza is still scrolling through her phone.

Taking another sip of my drink as I sit down, I wait to see if my presence will be acknowledged. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. Leeza may be my best friend since university, but she's always been somewhat self-absorbed and focused on her own things that she doesn't see who or what's around her. It may be bad to say that of her, but it's a truth that I accepted long ago as it just being a part of her.

Instead, I look out the window. After a while, I pull my pen and journal from my bag and start putting my thoughts down.

"Hey, Nae. Hey!" My consciousness is pierced by Leeza's voice.

"Hmm? What?" I ask, my gaze moving from the page in front of me to see the excitement on my friend's face. "What's going on with you?"

"Do you see the guy over by the corner, sitting alone?" She whispers loudly to me while jerking her head in a direction to my left. I turn to look. Sure enough, there's a guy sitting at the table with a dark knit hat pulled low over his head and a mask covering the lower half of his face so only his eyes are visible. I frown as I turn back to Leeza.

"Yeah? And?"

"And doesn't he look like...you-know-who?"

Looking again, I scrutinize the features I can see. "Yeah, he kind of does. But I doubt he would be here, today, right now, in broad daylight," I say skeptically.

"God, Nae, you make him sound like a vampire that will only come out at night! But why couldn't it be him? It's his father's café after all," she retorts.

"You seriously think The Mr. Park Jimin would be here, in Busan, with enough time to kill just to hang out by himself at his father's café when he, and the rest of the members of the world's biggest K-pop boy band, have a schedule to prepare for their concert in two weeks?" I ask sarcastically. "Besides, even if, and that's a gigantic if, it was him, don't you think he would like to be left alone?"

"Well..." Leeza hedges. "When you put it like that...but it still wouldn't hurt to at least say hello to a fellow human being, right?"

"Leeza, don't..." I plead, standing up as she does, walking in his direction. I remain in my spot, feeling like a bystander watching a train chugging its way towards a wreck. I slowly sit back down, my face heating up in embarrassment on her behalf. Or maybe it's solely mine.