𝓈𝒾𝓃𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 ─── ˢˡᵒʷ ᵘᵖᵈᵃᵗᵉˢ

⁰⁶. 𝐚 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐬

''  ᵃ ᵈᵃᵗᵉ ᶠᵘˡˡ ᵒᶠ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗˢ ''

✧─✧──✧─────────────────────────────✧──✧─✧

Sunoh's breath hitched when he caught sight of Nari at the other end of the road.

She was wearing a beautiful white dress, the skirt of which had many layers that shifted with every move she made while the top part was dusted with glitter which shimmered as she walked. On top of her dress she had put on a white coat to keep herself warm, but it was unzipped to show off the dress beneath. She had made her hair wavy, and some of the more curly strands kept being blown in her face by the wind which made her squint and scrunch her nose every now and then.

She looks heavenly—just like an angel, Sunoh thought as he pushed himself off the wall that he had been leaning against while waiting for her. Suddenly, he felt very underdressed in his jeans and white knitted jumper which was hidden by his black coat. His signature red scarf was wrapped tightly round his neck, protecting his neck from the cold. Sunoh cursed at himself in his mind for not picking out something better to wear for their first date.

A week had passed since their first Friday spent together, and Sunoh had finally managed to gather up enough courage to ask Nari to spend the weekends with him after much self-encouragement. He had been hesitant to call it a date when he rang her late on Friday evening since he didn't know if it would be too early for that, but when he heard Nari's happy teasing of 'are you making the first move and asking me out on a date?' from the other end of the line during their phone call, Sunoh didn't hesitate to agree.

"Hi," Nari grinned as she came to a stop in front of him, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear so that it wouldn't hit her in the face anymore. The butterfly hairclip which usually kept her hair out of her face was nowhere to be seen, allowing her hair to move as it wanted to. She cursed at herself as she realised she should have at least substituted it for a different hairclip, but then remembered that she didn't own any besides that one.

"You're beautiful," Sunoh blurted out, pulling her out of her thoughts.

They blinked at one another silently for a moment.

"I mean—" Sunoh's face flushed red, "I, uh—I didn't mean that—wait, no—no—I did—I did mean it, but I didn't want to just say it like that—I wanted to tell you but not—not like this! I wanted to—"

He huffed and clamped his mouth shut as he failed to string a proper sentence together. Lowering his gaze to stare at his feet instead of her, the Hwang boy hid his flushed cheeks in the fabric of his red scarf.

"I meant to say 'hi'," he mumbled, voice muffled by the scarf, "But I was thinking about how beautiful you are and it slipped out and...yeah..."

Nari continued to stare up at him wordlessly for a moment, her cheeks gradually darkened in colour as his words replayed in her mind. She felt giddy, the happiness bubbling up inside of her until she did something that she hadn't done not even once in the past month. Seo Nari smiled. 

She had been used and broken, cast aside and thieved of her happiness. She hadn't smiled in so long that she had been sure that she had forgotten how to. But now she was standing with someone just as broken as her, and she was smiling. All because of him—all because of Hwang Sunoh.