"Have you ever met a stranger you recognized?"
One in ten thousand- that's how many people have someone predetermined for them. It's even rarer for them to actually find each other, but thanks to a special birthday wish, fate might just be on their...
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nostalgia, fifty-five. ❛ the truth untold ❜
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FOUR WEEKS EARLIER.
A long dream. That was what Han Yebin felt like she'd woken up from as her eyes fluttered open, squinting at the blinding lights of the hospital room.
Her body ached. She didn't know why. She didn't even know why she was in here. Looking down at herself, she saw the arm cast she'd been put in, and became aware of the bandage wrapped around her head.
Other things in the room slowly came into sight. The flowers and greeting cards on her bedside table, the clock on the wall, and the calendar right next to it. February 23, 2022. That didn't seem right.
She sat up to stare at it in disbelief, but the small action seemed to alert her doctor, who came barging in through her door. Ah, my dad. Yebin smiled.
He did the obvious, coddling her with love and questions as he thanked God for 'giving her back.' He asked her if she was okay, and to rate her current pain from one to ten. But Yebin barely heard him. Everything still felt hazy, somehow. Her ears were ringing, and nothing seemed real just yet.
Then, her dad walked out to make a phone call. A boy entered the room shortly after that, startling Hajoon. "Jungwon? But, I just called you-?"
"I was already here, sir." The boy— Jungwon, she now learned— awkwardly closed the door behind him as he walked in. She couldn't get a good look at him from afar, but there was a vague familiarity about his voice. It sounded like one she'd heard before, in a comforting bedtime story or something of the sort.
"Oh." Her dad composed himself. "Well then, what are you waiting for?"
The boy flickered his eyes towards the hospital bed, and Yebin couldn't help but stare straight back at him, her eyes widening slightly. He might have been a stranger, yet she recognized him with the slightest certainty, but a certainty nonetheless. To put it into words, he had the kind of face you'd see at a bus stop, distinguishable not by name but by habit alone. She didn't really realize she was staring, or that she'd zoned out once again.
