Chapter Text
The sun is just about to start its slow descent over the horizon when he arrives at the beach.
In this small coastal town, the world quiets and slows down in equal measure. The worries of the city seem so small here, untouchable even, and he thinks it’s fitting that they get to rewrite their future here.
After all, today is the day he keeps his promise.
He walks through a long stretch of sand, eyes searching and impatient. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore both mimic and calm the turmoil inside him: it’s been four long years.
There was always the possibility that she would no longer be waiting, and in that case, keeping his promise would be moot.
(He tries not to think about this possibility, hopes against all hope it to be not true. Because if it is—)
“Are you worried she won’t be here?”
The rabbit hole of dark thoughts he’s about to spiral into is interrupted by a voice that’s grown familiar through the years, and loathe as he is to admit, comforting, even.
(In another life, this voice would have been that of a friend’s, a confidante, a comrade. In many ways, the last two were true in this life, but the first? Highly debatable.)
Turning to his companion, his right brow twitches upward in the most miniscule movement.
Kim Taesung huffs out a laugh.
“She’s here. We both know it.”
Taesung doesn’t say ‘she will be’. He says ‘she is’, and that makes all the difference.
The riot in his chest grows, and he tries to wrestle the hope into something more bearable.
He wants to believe with all his deadened heart that she is here, but a lifetime of emotional disappointments has taught him not to expect anything.
They continue walking for a long while, him and his almost-friend, and every step he takes that she’s nowhere to be found is painful in the most physical sense.
The pinks and oranges that signal the sun’s descent have just started to appear in the sky when he finally catches sight of her.
It’s instantaneous and immense, the relief and wonder he feels, and it’s cathartic.
She’s standing right where the waves kiss the shoreline, toes wiggling in the wet sand as the sea breeze whips her hair gently to and fro.
He greedily drinks in the sight of her, every bit a man starved of his beloved finally coming back to life.
She is here, and she is so, so beautiful.
“Sol-ah.”
Her name comes tumbling out of his lips like a prayer and a plea: hushed, reverent, desperate.
The longing and the desire for her is overwhelming, and he spares a moment to ponder on how she’s still—and the only one—able to incite all these feelings out of him.
As if the wind carries his voice to her ears, she turns and meets his gaze—across time lost, across time that’s finally flowing again—and the riot in his chest reaches a crescendo.
They stare at each other for a long while, disbelieving almost, and he basks in every second of it, catalogs it into his memory with ardor and devotion.
Her hair is longer and layered now, and she has curtain bangs that frame her face perfectly. Her eyes are still the most surreal shade of brown he’s ever seen, and they sparkle with an emotion he’s finally learnt the name of: love.
A smile breaks across her face, slow at first and then all at once, and his name on her lips is like absolution at last.
And he knows: this is his homecoming.