A Thousand Purple Stars (JinJi)

Catching Up

She was late.

Jinyoung checked the time on his phone and sighed. It was almost 1 pm and there was still no sign of Jisoo. Typical. He should have expected that she'd be a no-show. Served him right trying to depend on her. He sat alone at a table in the middle of Heather's, a trendy, sunny sandwich bistro that had just opened up halfway between Eastern University and Southern Technical. There was lunch rush going on and the waitress had come to check on him twice already, so there was a crowd of people around to witness him being stood up.

Stop. He mentally scolded himself for thinking in those terms. He wasn't being stood up. This wasn't a date. This was just a favor he was doing for a dead man, but he supposed even that wasn't happening anymore either.

Jinyoung sighed. He reached down into his backpack and pulled out a library book about cognitive disorders and opened it up to a dog-eared page. He supposed that as long as he had the reservation, he may as well have lunch on his own and get some studying in before his lab later.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and concentrated on the words in the book. He hated that he felt disappointed at Jisoo no-showing him. Since when did he care what Jisoo did or didn't do? He turned a page and kept reading, only looking up once in a while, hoping to get a waiter's attention so he could place a lunch order. When one finally walked past him, though, he didn't speak loud enough to be noticed.

That was when he saw her.

Jinyoung didn't have to try very hard to remember the very first time he saw Jisoo, which was nearly ten years ago. Walking into Heather's, she wore a white shirt and a wide-eyed, slightly worried look on her face. Jinyoung thought she looked much the same now as she did that first day of school when he first saw her:

Beautiful.

Jisoo was looking above people's heads. When she finally spotted him from the doorway, she stopped and stared at him for a minute with a look of surprise. Then the expression disappeared and was replaced by a grimace. Jinyoung sighed as he dog-eared the page he left off of. Of course, this was Kim Jisoo. A beautiful face ruined by a poor attitude. He knew that well enough from middle and high school. Here it goes.

Jisoo crossed the length of the restaurant. As soon as she reached his table, Jinyoung said:

"You're late. The reservation was at 12:30."

Jisoo narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one who didn't give me a chance to say anything before you hung up yesterday," she said. "You said 12:30, but my lunch break isn't until 12:50, and I'm not crossing my boss on your account."

"Whatever," Jinyoung said. "Have a seat."

She pulled the chair out and sat down on the other end of the table. A waiter finally came by to take their orders. Jinyoung noticed a lot more about Jisoo now that she was sitting in front of him. She had slimmed out since high school. Not that she was ever a big girl, but the stubborn baby fat that clung to her cheeks as a teenager had gone. She had tidied up a bit, too. He remembered her coming to school with daisy-chains on her head and dirt crusted under her fingernails. Now, her hair was smooth and smelled faintly of strawberries and her nails were manicured.

"I think you have something that belongs to me," she said after the waiter left. Jisoo was eager to get to the heart of their meeting today. Jinyoung reached into his bag again and pulled out the envelope with Jisoo's name on it. She ripped it open and pulled the stationary out as soon as she had it in her hands.

Dear Jisoo, the letter read. She read the letter, savoring every word her old teacher had written. The words took her back to middle school, to those days she spent sitting in Mr. Hong's classroom, growing her vocabulary and slowly but surely planting the seeds that would blossom into her dream of becoming a writer. The letter briefly recalled a meeting between Jisoo and her teacher.