소개팅

It feels good to dress up nicely, to build up your own confidence with the use of a pretty dress and some quality time spent on makeup. Sheer tights keep my legs protected from the Winter air, and boots help give me a bit of a boost in height. A long beige jacket helps keep me warm. My hair is slightly curled to frame my face, and my makeup ventures into the Korean-style this time, which ends up making me look more like my father than I thought possible.

This will be good, I try to convince myself.

I walk into the cafe and look around. The place is decorated with fairy lights and Christmas-themed greenery. It smells delicious and the cozy atmosphere makes it the perfect getaway for the cold pre-Winter season.

I see mostly couples together, but one man's back faces me. It's clear he's alone, and from behind he looks young. His shoulders are broad, a light blue dress-shirt covering it, and his hair is black. I cautiously walk up to the table, hoping I'm not wrong and end up embarrassing myself.

"Uh—" I stutter out when I reach the table. The man turns his head to look up at me, a surprised expression covering his handsome features briefly.

"Miss Nam Sohee?" He asks and I smile in return. I bow and introduce myself before sitting down.

"Wow, Hyemi said you were pretty, but I didn't expect," he fumbles over his words cutely as his cheeks flush pink. I lightly laugh.

"A foreigner?" I softly laugh and add "and you're more handsome than I expected, Lee Sungjin."

He looks at me with an open smile for a bit before asking what I want to drink. He gets up to order and I try to make myself comfortable. I feel so aware of myself—of how I'm sitting, even of how I'm breathing. Maybe I'm not ready for dating after all.

When he returns I bring the cup to my lips a bit too quickly, a habit of mine when I'm nervous.

"Sohee you should—"

I hiss when the tea burns my tongue. I put the drink down a bit too hastily and air my tongue out, fanning it with my hands. Sungjin laughs at me. Great, just great.

"I'm sorry, I can be clumsy sometimes."

"No, no, it's cute," he smiles warmly at me.

I can't help but feel strange by his kindness towards me. His smile is genuine, his words sincere, but they sound empty to me. They don't sound quite right.

But I brush these thoughts away.

We spend about an hour talking, and it gets easier and easier. He's very friendly and open-minded, which allows me to feel more at ease with each minute that passes. My body begins to relax, my stiff smile changing into a loose, genuine one. I begin to remember why socializing is a good thing.

My thoughts only diverge away from the man in front of me once, when my keen ears pick up a vaguely familiar melody lightly playing in the cafe. It's the song that made me cry in the taxi. My thoughts seem to dull for a moment, my ears eagerly trying to tune out the background noise so it can pick up the soft piano notes and wistful vocals.

"Sohee?"

"Oh, sorry."

He looks at me a bit peculiarly for a while. I can tell he's also listening to the song, but his gaze on me doesn't change. I take another drink of my tea to break the eye-exchange.

"Did you want to go on a blind date?"

These words cause me to stare wide-eyed at him with my mouth full of liquid. I swallow the tea down a bit painfully and put the cup back down.

"Honestly, at first no. But I'm glad I did," I put on a fabricated smile. Why do I feel strange now?

"Are you really? You seem a bit distracted."

I look back at him in discomfort. Silence yells at us for a while, the comfort I once felt completely vanishing.

"I-I don't know," I stutter.

"Sohee, are you still in love with someone?"

I can feel my heart increase with pace rapidly. My palms grow a bit sweaty so I clasp my hands together nervously.

"I can tell you're not here to meet a potential lover, you're just here to socialize."

How does he know this?

"I'm sorry Sungjin, I really do want to be here."

"Are you still in love with someone?" He asks again.

I pause, dumbfounded by the mans straight-forwardness. "I-I don't know." The words leave my mouth before I can even think about them. He nods his head softly, looking down briefly as if he knows exactly what I'm feeling.

"If you don't know, that means you still are. Believe me, I know." He smiles warmly at me. "I know because I'm not here to meet a potential girlfriend either. Hyemi is very persistent, you know?" He smiles again at his last comment. I smile back, that she is.

"So you're in love with someone?" I gain the courage to ask. It helps to know he's not interested in dating either.

He nods solemnly. "Unfortunately," he laughs. "And I can't seem to move on."

I nod absentmindedly as my eyes fixate on the table.

"Sounds like you're in a similar situation," he says.

"I don't know. I don't really know what happened. We didn't break up, but things ended badly and he never contacted me again after. It's been so long now, I assumed my feelings went away." I look back up at him, "But I'm not so sure anymore."

He leans in a bit with a smile, his hand coming to rest on mine in a comforting manner.

"I understand. Love is hard, isn't it? I think we both need to work on figuring out our feelings."

I nod my head. He grins at me in a comforting way. "It'll all work out, we'll get through it!"

I smile back at him, feeling a bit of weight fall off my shoulders and crumble onto the ground; a weight I never knew was pulling me down.

I end up walking home alone with a mindset I didn't expect to have after a blind date. Nostalgia. Memories. Missing. My obsessive thoughts about the past cause me to stare blankly at my phone for a long time. And finally, I click on a name I haven't seen in a year.

I can feel my heart race up into my throat as the phone dials.

Finally, he picks up.

"Hello?"

. . .

소개팅 - so-gae-ting means blind date

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Love,

Sooaura