The next morning Sara burst out of a taxi at Incheon Airport, her expression a storm of frustration and disbelief.
She clutched her bag tightly, muttering under her breath as she navigated the throng of travelers.
The night before had stretched on longer than anticipated, but she was having so much fun with Nari and her friends that the hours slipped away unnoticed.
When morning arrived, her alarm clock wove itself seamlessly into her dreams, at first masquerading as the ring of a telephone.
Each time it blared again, every eight minutes, it transformed into a different, indistinct sound within her dreamscape—blending so naturally that she remained oblivious to reality.
‘I can’t believe it…
I missed the flight again,’ she thought to herself, glancing at the departure board with a resigned shake of her head.
‘Ever since I said nothing ever happens to me with flights, it’s been nothing but a curse—missed flights, lost luggage, delays.
The flight curse is real.’ She paced in the cool morning air outside the terminal before resigning herself to her fate.
‘I’ll have to buy another ticket.
I just hope there are still flights to Jeju this morning.’ Inside the terminal, Sara joined the serpentine line at the ticket counter, her impatience flickering in her restless fingers.
When her turn finally came, she clutched the new ticket as if it were a reprieve granted by the gods.
After that she tried to kill time getting a massage at one of those unlikely quickie massage places in the airport and eating an expensive but poor-quality meal at a solitary table in a cafe.
From there, at a kiosk bursting with color, she plucked a glass of orange juice from the shelf.
The cool plastic felt grounding against her skin.
She sipped as she walked.
Finally, she paused near a towering digital clock mounted on a pillar in the concourse.
Its bright digits seemed to mock her.
‘Shit,’ she muttered, clutching the orange juice tighter.
‘It’s late.
I have to find the gate now.
This airport is enormous…’ She began to run, her suitcase dragging behind her like an unruly child.
The crowd parted reluctantly, her apologies lost in the sea of voices.
The collision happened so fast that neither had time to react.
Orange juice arced through the air, an ephemeral splash of citrus sunlight, before landing squarely on a crisp white shirt.
Kim Seon-woo’s expression tightened into a mask of barely restrained irritation as he looked down at the stain.
‘Oh no, I’m so sorry!’ Sara stammered, looking up into the sharply annoyed face of the man in front of her.
‘Can’t you look where you’re going?’ he snapped, brushing at his now-stained shirt.
‘I said I’m sorry!’ she repeated, her voice rising slightly in defense.
‘In airports, you can’t run like that,’ he countered.
‘There are children, older people—’ ‘Well,’ she interrupted, her exasperation flaring, ‘airports are exactly where people run.
Haven’t you ever missed a flight?’ ‘What?
No.’ His brow furrowed, the answer delivered with an air of offended logic.
‘And that’s not the point.’ ‘Yes, it is,’ she argued, the nuisance in her eyes meeting his.
‘If you’d ever lost a flight, you’d empathize a little more with me right now.’ ‘Empathize?
I’m covered in orange juice!’ ‘It’s natural,’ she said with a shrug, holding up the nearly empty glass.
‘The juice, I mean.
The stains will come out.
I’ll pay for the cleaning.’ ‘I don’t need you to pay anything,’ he snapped, though his irritation was beginning to soften into something more puzzled.
Sara sighed, realizing the argument was going nowhere.
‘Look,’ she said, exasperated.
‘I don’t think we’re going to understand each other, and I cannot miss another flight today.’ Kneeling quickly, she rummaged through her bag, her movements quick and frantic.
Finally, she pulled out a well-worn book and tore out a page, scribbling something on it.
As she wrote, her eyes flicked to the book Seon-woo was holding.
‘It’s not Murakami’s best,’ she remarked, her tone suddenly lighter.
She gestured toward the book he held, Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
‘but I liked it’.
Before Seon-woo could respond, she thrust the torn page toward him.
‘Here’s my number,’ she said briskly.
‘If you send me a message, I’ll transfer the money for the cleaner.’ ‘But I said—’ he began, but she was already standing, her movements fluid with newfound urgency.
‘Now I really have to run,’ she declared, slipping the paper into the folds of his book with a mischievous flick of her wrist.
As she turned to leave, she called back over her shoulder, ‘Haruki,’ her voice carrying a teasing lilt.
‘I’ll be waiting for your message.’ And with that, she was gone, disappearing into the throng of travelers with the same hurried energy that had marked their encounter.
Seon-woo stood there, the torn page tucked neatly into his book.
For a moment, his annoyance lingered, but as he watched her retreating figure vanish into the crowd, a faint, reluctant smile crept across his lips.
… After days of travel that seemed to prolonged across centuries, Seon-woo stepped into the hotel lobby.
At the reception desk, a foreigner with a broad smile and a flawless command of Korean awaited him, exuding an unnatural enthusiasm that seemed to vibrate against the weariness of the hour.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said, his smile as radiant as the hotel’s polished tiles.
Seon-woo nodded politely.
‘I have a reservation for tonight,’ he said with exhaustion.
‘Just one night?’.
‘Yes,’ Seon-woo replied, his brow furrowing.
‘Traveling alone?’ ‘Yes, I am.’ His tone held a subtle edge, but the receptionist seemed undeterred, offering instead to arrange a dinner reservation.
‘No, thanks,’ he replied, taking the room card handed to him.
‘I’ll call room service.’ The receptionist’s cheerfulness persisted.
‘Of course, sir!
I hope you enjoy your stay in Jeju´s island’ the receptionist replied, handing him the room card.
As he walked away, Seon-woo muttered under his breath, ‘What’s wrong in being alone lately?’ Later that night, in the solitude of his room, Seon-woo sat on the bed, a piece of paper with the airport girl’s phone number lying beside his phone.
During the endless meetings that had consumed his day, Seon-woo’s thoughts had drifted to that girl.
He couldn’t shake the image of her from his mind.
Something about her had unsettled him.
It wasn’t just the obvious—her deep intense eyes.
Or perhaps it was the way she carried herself, so resolute.
She was confident in a way that felt unfamiliar to him.
Her approach to him seemed so different from the women he knows, and it had left him restless, with thoughts returning to her over and over again.
It wasn’t like him to act on impulses, but the more he thought about it, the clearer it became.
He wanted to reach out to her.
Maybe it was the isolation of being away from home for so many days, that made him crave some kind of connection.
He wasn’t sure what he wanted from her, but there was a small voice inside him that urged him to make that first contact.
After a few moments of indecision, he picked up his phone.
His thumb hovered over the screen, hesitation flickering across his face.
He had never been one for texting casually, especially not with someone he barely knew.
He wondered if a simple message would help him understand what it was about her that had captivated him.
He hesitated.
‘Hello, I’m the guy from the airport…’ he typed, then immediately deleted it, the message dissolving into pixels.
Too direct.
‘Hello…’ Again, he erased it, dissatisfied.
Then inspiration struck, and a sly smile curled his lips.
‘I have been informed that the shirt’s cleaners will cost 1Q84 wons,’ he typed, referencing Murakami’s labyrinthine novel.
He chuckled, imagining her reaction.
‘If she gets it,’ he mused aloud, ‘this could be fun’.
He told himself it wasn’t anything serious—just a way to pass the time in his lonely hotel room.
He pressed send, his heart inexplicably racing as he set the phone down.
Sara’s response arrived swiftly and sharp.
‘That’s cheap!
Then I’ll have to invite you to a blues concert…
in Tokyo.’ Her cleverness surprised him.
He replied, ‘In Tokyo?
There are good concerts in Seoul too…
if you live there…?’ Sara hesitated briefly, realizing he might have taken her joke too far but committed anyway.
‘We don’t accept such personal questions!
But I’ll honor the concert offer.
You choose, since I have embarrassed you!
Only one condition: the offer has a limited time—then poof, it disappears.’ ‘How long?’ Seon-woo asked, intrigued by her theatrical flair.
‘Four days from Tuesday,’ she replied.
‘Complicated,’ he countered.
‘I wonder why it disappears… Anyway, I could on the 17th.’ ‘Done!’ Sara wrote back.
‘I like all music.
You write to me before, and I’ll buy the tickets.’ Seon-woo responded without hesitation: ‘I’ll run there.’ Sara laughed as she read his reply.
‘Are you a runner?
Two kinds of people read this book: those who want to start running and those who already do it to feel superior.’ Seon-woo smirked, his reply loaded with playful precision.
‘I’m one of the first.
You seem like the second.’ Seon-woo was impressed by her quick thinking, and as he had anticipated, their conversation was turning his lonely evening into something far more engaging than he had expected.
She also enjoyed their exchange but began to feel the pull of sleep.
‘You caught me!
I have to go to bed now.
See you on the 17th.’ Seon-woo hesitated before typing his final words.
‘For once, I will empathize… and I will also go to sleep.’ As he saved her number under the nickname ‘Orange Juice,’ the memory of their encounter at the airport bloomed in his mind again.