LEMONS / 𝗺𝗹𝗺 (✓)

3: where they flirt

CHAPTER THREE
where they (kinda) flirt

If Kalen believed in coincidences, then the sky was the color of grass and the clouds, the color of candy.

Nothing happened as a coincidence—disguised as one, yes, but it was only that; a disguise. Everything happened for some kind of reason and whether it was caused by a creature in the sky or the stars planning out the lives of the unknown, Kalen didn't know and he didn't care enough to spend the rest of his life finding out.

He just knew that coincidences were something people used to describe the disappointment of losing a game or the excitement of meeting someone unplanned on the street and that Kalen didn't believe in any of it.

It could never be a coincidence meeting Ria at the bus station, that he only went to because his bike had a flat tire that day and he was in a rush, or when he went for a walk, once in a lifetime, with no purpose or destination and found the stray cat he then spend the next four years of his life, feeding. It could never be a coincidence, when he was the one getting the last croissant in the bakery and not someone else or when he broke his leg from falling down a tree, even though his sister had told him to keep himself on the ground multiple of times.

Coincidences simply didn't exist.

And therefore, he could never convince himself that seeing a familiar mop of raven-colored hair in the end of the candy aisle, tilted down so the person it belonged to could read the back of a what seemed to be some kind of candy, was simply a coincidence.

Hwan hadn't noticed Kalen, who stood with a basket in one hand and an unused umbrella in the other and only stared at the bag of what Kalen realized was gummy bears with a frown on his face, occasionally turning the bag around in his hand as if he was searching for answers he could never get, in the candy aisle of a local convenience store.

What the creature in the sky or the stars or the universe or whatever it now was, wanted Kalen to do, was unknown and Kalen didn't care enough to think too much about it, as he called out,

"Hwan."

He almost seemed scared as his head snapped in the direction of Kalen's voice, to see who had had the audacity to call out for him. Kalen didn't know who Hwan had expected — he had his suspicions, but he tried not to draw to conclusions — but the way his shoulders sunk and his face relaxed, it certainly hadn't been the one he had expected.

Kalen found himself hoping it was a good thing.

"Kalen," he mumbled, not leaving Kalen's eyes. Despite acknowledging him, he didn't move, so Kalen took the initiative and approached him first.

And Kalen realized it was the first time he had ever seen Hwan under as clean light, as the kind coming from the sky at noon. Reaching the two customers because of the large windows build into the convenience store, the light revealed things the dull and sensual light in the bar given by the old yellow lamps, never could.

Bathed in those lights meant no sign of the spot in Hwan's bangs that was colored white, (something Kalen couldn't tell was real or not), nor the scratch on his chin which resembled the one Kalen had been given from his first ever pet cat when he had been nine. The lights in the bar robbed away so many features of Hwan, it was almost ridiculous.

Just like the scratch, the light colored birthmark that covered almost his entire ear and the nearly invisible freckles scattered across his upper neck, were parts Kalen had never been given the possibility of knowing existed.

Kalen wondered if Hwan thought the same and considered what details about the bartender he would be noticing if he did.

"You live around here?" Kalen wondered out loud, making sure he wasn't too obvious with admiring all the features of the other man. "I shop here all the time and I've never seen you around."