One x One destiny, it's just a tiny dot [cs]

from an outside perspective, iseul has it all going on for him. naturally outgoing and indiscriminately amiable, he makes for a rather popular figure among his peers, being the type to walk down a hallway and exchange greetings every five seconds with seemingly random people. while rarely a stickler for the spotlight, iseul is a memorable presence nonetheless, known for being a relaxed and unreserved character, who possesses a youthful temperament and a rather optimistic take on life — though his occasional critics might find his attitude frivolous or his words glib. more often, though, people usually find themselves charmed upon knowing him by his boyish confidence and sarcastic humor. in turns loving and beloved, he appears, under a stranger's gaze, by all means as carefree and blasé as only youth can be.

a look inside, however, shows that he tends more toward the opposite; diligent and persistent in most of what he does, iseul habitually manages to achieve a level that you could call above average in them without straying far, negatively or otherwise, from that standard. his earnest nature reflects also in his relationships, as he proves himself to be a kind friend and thoughtful partner. though he has many friends, iseul keeps those closest to him in a separate category, and is prone to being protective, often going above and beyond to keep them unharmed and happy. a person who hates complications, he often asks for complete honesty from his companions, especially romantic ones, and gets easily frustrated when he feels he's not getting it. in those moments, he can be unexpectedly insecure, and reacts in ways that often feel unlike himself.

likes

milk tea, comics, baseball, hiking, traveling, acoustic music, starry nights (and the way they light up her eyes)

dislikes

pigeons, dentists, boredom, powerpoint slides, beaches, romance novels, rainy days (and driving on highways)

fears

losing a loved one (and dreams, because he wakes up and loses her all over again)

the younger of two children in the geum family, iseul was raised in an exceedingly normal home, with normal working class parents, a normal bullying older sister named seulgi and a not-so normal old cat named miso who liked to chew on blankets. a mischievous and boisterous boy, iseul made a lot of friends around the neighbourhood from the get go and he grew up doing — yes, you guessed it — very normal, stupid childhood things, from card fights to unruly games of tag. he'd spend entire days running around and having fun, then come back to a warm house with a loving family. he felt like he had everything in life.

as a kid, one of his favorite hobbies was to copy his sister. the key was do whatever she did, and so when she decided to start studying harder to become a doctor, he declared that he would, as well. much to his family's badly-veiled surprise, he was pretty good at it. his grades began to soar with each year and, every time he brought back his report card, his mom would look so happy. so he kept at it. and finally, when it came time for the national exams, he tested into one of the best schools in seoul. it was expensive, but his parents insisted that he attend, because they would find a way. and he felt like he had everything in life.

they moved away that year, so they could be closer to his new school, and he had to start from zero again. for a fleeting moment, iseul was taken aback, a fish out of water. fleeting, because it passed once they had their first gym class and his shuttlecock had gotten stuck in a tree and everyone laughed. it didn't take long after that for him to start making friends. collecting them, even, like pokemon — and he managed to capture a rare one named kihoon, who secretly shared his love for horror movies at midnight and quickly became his best friend. together, they made for a pretty popular pair, and he felt like he had everything in life.

hours and days and months went by after that, bringing with them nothing in particular. school passed, summer passed, rinse, repeat, and even high school seemed like it would be over soon. then she came around. or, rather, he saw her, who had always been there. her crush on ki-hoon was not as subtle as she might have thought it was, and he felt almost bad for finding her funny. when he caught her staring, he'd play a little game: how long would it take for her to see him staring back? most of the times, the answer was: undetermined, she never notices. but once, their eyes met and he looked away on instinct, surprised. then he looked again, wondering if she's noticed, and found that her gaze was on his best friend again. and he felt just a tiny bit annoyed.

when college started, they ended up in the same class and in similar groups of friends. she still clearly liked ki-hoon and it was no longer just him who noticed. the boys would joke and tease about it, but it was mostly harmless and he laughed along. then one day, right before christmas break, they sent her a letter. love, choi ki-hoon, it signed off, and she seemed giddy the whole day when she received it. would she really go? it would be for nothing. ki-hoon didn't even know about it. this was terrible. he found himself loitering around the area on the designated day and, sure enough, she was there, standing alone in the cold. waiting for a boy to never come. before he knew it he had taken a step toward her.

two steps.

three steps.

then he was right there, empty-handed and feeling the weird tension in the air way too strongly. she just looked at him, confused.

well, he'd said, or something like that, i know you were waiting for, you know, ki-hoon, but- she kept staring and he went silent. what was he doing here, again? what was he trying to say?

but i like you, he finally blurts out. she takes a step back like the surprise literally hit her. which was fair enough, because even he couldn't believe what he was doing. but he tells her, i really like you, shin areum, just thought you should know.

after that day, the awkwardness between them was so palpable and thick you couldn't break it with a hammer. it was kind of ridiculous, kind of amusing, maybe even a little heart-flutter-inducing. they were getting closer, oddly enough, thanks to what had turned out to be an accidental secret meeting. he would look over and she'd be staring at him instead, now. he would tell a stupid joke and she would laugh, and her laugh would be so pretty. he couldn't take it anymore, so he confessed again, told her that yes, he still liked her, yes, he was serious and no, it was not a prank. and she said yes, she would be with him. and he felt dizzy, so head over heels he didn't know what way was up.

for a relationship that started so clumsily, it was a strong one. strong enough that she eventually took him to meet her parents, a dinner with just the four of them, by the time her first birthday rolled around that they'd spent together. it would be a casual event, or so she'd insisted, and her parents were nice, amazing people. one of those things was true. her parents were really nice, but also really wealthy, and the tab at the restaurant could not have been just casual. at least, not for him. iseul wasn't naive. he'd been surrounded by rich kids long enough to know he wasn't like them. but looking at her, sitting there, looking like she belonged in this beautiful, fancy place that he could not afford, was a little more striking than previous encounters.

after that, it was just an unstoppable slew of realizations. when someone talked about buying a nice car and taking their girlfriend on a ride, he thought of the ones parked in her parents' garage and how his second-hand one must seem so dingy in comparison. when he scrolled past posts of gorgeous vacations, he imagined her there, laughing, and wondered if he would ever be able to take her to these places. when he got a new apartment to live in alone and she came over, the perfect-sized room suddenly shrank and seemed way too small to fit them both. areum hated small spaces.

at first, those thoughts worked as motivation. it helped him focus, persevere, to go all out on his internships and land a job in a good company right after graduation. so he kept bringing himself down, as if that would help him reach even higher places. then he went after promotions, drank too much trying to please his supervisors, worked too late at nights to finish up rewards. their dates were missed or cut short increasingly often, but it was fine, he told himself. because the hours he struggled earned the diamond ring that looked so pretty on her, and now he had the rest of his life to spend with her. he tried hard to change, to push further, to make himself the person he thought she deserved. but he loved her too much, she deserved everything in life — and if he ever had that, he didn't think so anymore. he felt like he had nothing to offer.

that night, it'd been a company dinner. he was expecting to get the promotion, that day, because his boss had told him as much and he'd done so much for the team. after this, he could relax a little more, and they could finally start planning for the wedding. they'd been engaged for more than a year now and she must have been getting impatient. she never said so, but areum never was the one to complain. it was the best and worst thing about her. he looked over, at the ring on her finger and the way she leaned slightly on his shoulder, and he smiled.

that smile dropped quickly. the promotion went to someone else; the manager's son. the chief came over afterward, patted him on the back, and told him you're too young. he was shocked. upset. helpless. angry, and there was nothing he could take it out on but himself.

so the drive back home was quiet. it'd been raining hard and the weather was cold, misty. he was trying to not think of anything else but the road. they stop at a red light and areum said something he couldn't recall. maybe it was about getting takeout or the chores they had left to do. something mundane. he turned to her and saw it on her face. something was wrong.

what? he asked. he didn't like the tone of his own voice; it made her flinch.

she replied with her usual words. everything's fine, she's okay, they'll be okay. but they weren't. all he could think about was the missed promotion, how unfair it was. wasn't she disappointed with him too?

just tell me what's wrong, he pressed, even though he knew she wouldn't give him the answer he wanted.

her voice was drowned out by the sound of engines starting, as neon green spilled over the roads. the words they exchanged after that were as blurred as the streetlights that rushed by them, but he knows they were sharp, awful. he never meant anything he said.

fuck, he remembers cursing, you're always like this.

silence. it stretched, pulsed and screamed, spreading like a dark liquid, suffocating them. just for a second, his eyes went to her. they weren't meant to stay. but she was crying, her shoulders shaking and fists clenched. the adrenaline that numbed all his senses was whisked away, overtaken by guilt. it was only supposed to be a second, but his attention had been stolen.

a screech on the road brought him back to the world outside and he saw a small figure running past. a white silhouette. a dog, maybe. on instinct, he swerved, trying to avoid the animal. in his panic, he hadn't thought about the consequences of turning on a highway when he'd been going so fast before. the headlights that sped toward them looked like glowing eyes in the dark, of a charging predator. all he remembered after that was the sound of metal being crushed.

thirty-three hours later, he opened his eyes. or maybe he didn't. he couldn't tell. the voices of the doctors and his family were all muffled, like he was underwater. he wanted to ask about areum, where she was, what she was doing. but somewhere deep inside, he knew she was gone. he would drift out of consciousness and she would be there, faint but present. she would smile, but she never talked. like a ghost. it hurt him to see her like that. it hurt even more when the dream ended.

when did it go wrong? when did they start on this collision course? it was when he'd met her. he should have known. no, he knew, but he had persisted. he knew he wasn't good for her.

fifty-six hours after the crash, he closed his eyes. he heard a mechanical scream and his mother praying, then the world went quiet. peaceful.

then he opened his eyes again. and christmas break had not yet begun.

Areum can be described as a dreamer, a person who is always willing to help others, selfless to the point of letting others be happy instead of her. She is introverted and sensitive, someone who carries her heart on her sleeve and is not afraid to show how she really feels. She is creative and passionate in everything she does, she is the type of person that would write you a letter telling her how special you are for her just because she woke up with the need to do it. A hopeless romantic that is always showing and giving more love than what she usually receives. But her way of being has led her to people take advantage of her and her kindness, she is willing to forgive everyone and blame herself, just to not upset others.

likes

stargazing, daffodils, macaroon, small puppies, romance novels

dislikes

arguments, gloomy days, disappointing people, small spaces

fears

not finding true happiness

Areum was born as the only child of Shin Jae-Seong and Shin Eun-Jeong the owners of a flower shop called The Little Flower Shop. Which eventually became a chain of flower shops all over Seoul and some cities nearby. It was easy to say that even if she wasn't part of the richest families in Seoul, her family did have an accommodating life where money wasn't something to worry about.

While growing up she tried to have a normal life, she didn't want to be seen as just a rich kid just because her parents had a relatively well-known business all over the city. She attended extracurriculars, just like piano and art classes, she loved to always have a reason to show her creative side. She was also a good student with good grades that was always eager to learn something new every day.

As she grew older she started working on one of the flower shops, mostly because her parents wanted her to know more about the family business and because she had an indescribable love for flowers, she enjoyed helping people become happy with just a small detail.

When she became a high school student it was the first time she fell in love with someone, Choi Ki-Hoon was the one that had her full heart. She saw him as a prince taken out of a romance novel the ones that she loved to read. Daydreaming of both together becoming her everyday routine, she imagined all those scenarios where they both would just look at each other and fell in love, kind of cheesy but she had never had any experience in love rather than her romance novels. It would have been easier if she at least knew how to approach him after all she wasn't the only one that was crushing over the guy, she saw him getting one or two girlfriends back in high school and wondered when he would notice her.

With that mindset in her mind she graduated high school without changes in her relationship with Ki-Hoon, the only memories she had were the ones where she would admire him from afar or when their arms brushed lightly as they encountered together on the hallways. But this didn't make her feel discouraged, even if she wasn't able to show properly her feelings in high school she was going to try her best at college since they happened to be at the same university.

It was just a matter of time until her feelings would be reciprocated, and maybe soon would finally be her chance or at least that's what she wanted to believe.