Railway to the Sun // One Shot Kim Namjoon

One Shot

     Despite the early smell of spring, Kim Namjoon wrapped his gray knitted scarves to cover his face and tightened his khaki long coat to block the cold wind as he tried to figure out the Gyeongbu Line map. He looked at the long lines of foreigners at the information counter and decided to wing it on his own.

     After half an hour walking around the station he was not able to locate the train and started to doubt his decision of this spontaneous solo therapy trip. His ankle had healed but entering the figure skating rink again was much too difficult. He crumpled the map and ground his teeth.

"Are you lost?" he looked up from his wrinkled map to a girl around his age.

     She was a couple of inches shorter than him and had a natural tan skin, the complexion resulted from being under the sun. What struck him was her genuine concern expression and her calm dark brown eyes behind her dark rimmed glasses.

"Yes, I suppose."

"Where do you want to go?"

"Wondong station."

"Are you going for Wondong Maehwa Festival?"

"Yes, how do you know?"

"Lucky guess. But you are in luck! I am going there too, for this." She tapped her camera.

     He noticed her camera bag and tripod strapped on her body. Her light blue long denim jacket and fitted dark pants failed to hide her hourglass figure. Her white well worn converse shoe told him that she was not planning for a date to the festival.

"Are you a photographer?" He looked at her as she smiled back.

"Hi, I am Sun Ji Eun. I am a landscape photographer." she extended her small hand to him.

"I am Kim Namjoon. I am a figure skater."

She grabbed hold of his hand with much enthusiasm. Warmth and tingles spread at their touch.

"Serious? I am Cha Jun-hwan fan!" Her eyes twinkled with admiration and jumped excitedly on the spot. She was not letting go of his hand and he didn't mind it.

     He smiled for the first time that day as she led him to the correct terminal and they boarded the train finding two empty seats next to each other. They chatted about themselves along the way as the train slowly made its way southern. Hours passed and everything else faded into the background as they jumped from one topic to another from hobby, food, news, science to philosophy.

    It was approaching noon and the spring sunlight gleamed through the window. She stopped talking to him and raised up her hand as if to catch the sun rays looking mesmerized.

"Do you know that everything in our solar system revolves around the sun?"

"Yes. The sun rotates by itself and others orbit around the sun."

"Isn't it amazing that if anything happened to other planets, it doesn't have any big impact on the sun. But if the sun exploded, the entire solar system would crash." She was still playing with the sunlight.

"If only we can be like the sun. Regardless of things happening around us, it doesn't make an impact."

    He looked down to his legs which would freeze every time he went near the ice rink. He didn't know when, but after his fall it seemed the cold from the ice rink had seeped into his heart.

"You have it. In here." She placed her hand on his chest where his heart was and he hoped she didn't detect the rising heart beats.

"Your heart is your eternal sun. You have it inside of you all along. You just need to believe it." She smiled reassuringly at him.