Joohyun shouldn't be out here, she knows. 

And she shouldn't have sent that text. 

But she did anyway. Now she's just added another entry to a pile of unanwered messages. It sits at the bottom of her screen, bearing the weight of others sent before it: those inconsequential questions like "how are you" or "have you eaten", stupid ones like "I'm sorry", drunk ones like "I miss you".

It's funny. She used to be able to say those words without needing soju sloshing around in her stomach. When her mind wasn't hazy and with lips stretched into a smile towards the front door. When Seungwan stepped in, after a morning jog, or a grocery run, or a two-week trip abroad, there wasn't a need to say anything else. I missed you, Joohyun would say, fingers already perched around a lithe waist, always wanting to get tangled into her. Into that tight space between her arms, into her hair, into her voice. She'd bury deeper if she could, a sort of greed bubbling in her chest. Closer, it'd whisper. More.

Say it.

Say it back to me. 

And Seungwan, kind, gentle Seungwan would answer that greed with hands pressed firmer around her back. Joohyun would move her ear closer to , feel the vibrations rippling across the skin of Seungwan's neck as she'd say, I missed you too. 

Now they're just letters strung together sloppily with her thumbs. They're launched into a void only to echo perpetually. There's no place to land, no place to come home to. It's just constant.  

The missing is constant. 

She shouldn't be out here, she reminds herself. She shouldn't have sent that text. 

She stares at her latest mistake and scoffs at herself. Can we meet?

And just before that: I'm at the playground. 

Joohyun shakes her head and dumps her phone back into her purse. Keeps her hands in her pockets for a while. She didn't think it'd be this cold tonight.

No - she didn't think. She wasn't thinking. 

Now all she can do is think.

Gripping the metal chains on both sides, she takes a few steps back,

She's coming

and lifts her legs off the ground, flying into the night air with her feet pointed like a ballerina's. 

She's not coming

She gazes lazily at the street lamps as gravity pulls her back, and off she goes again.

She's coming

Back and forth. 

She's not coming

Back and forth. 

To be honest, she was never fond of this game. She's not one to leave things up to chance. 

It was Seungwan who came up with it - "like plucking a four-leaf clover," she said. She had proposed it spontaneously, speaking soothingly to a child who had been crying on the swings. He'd lost his dog, or something like that. Joohyun almost rolled her eyes as the younger girl winked at her conspiratorially, vanishing into the trees to search for the pet as an awkward Joohyun tried to console his owner.

And the weeping boy, perhaps not so surprisingly - because Son Seungwan had the unusual ability to connect with just about anyone -  had obediently muttered "Bobo will come" at the highest point of every arc he made on the swing, tiny sneakers high in the air, palms wound tightly around the chains. And Joohyun, despite her reservations and jadedness, and despite finding the name of the dog absolutely ridiculous, found herself murmuring those very same words. 

So they swung, and chanted as they swung, and wished. Wished that the little creature would come back to this little boy...

And it did. In Seungwan's dirt-filled embrace.

The woman had on the largest grin on her face, the kind that she had whenever she was absolutely pleased with herself, as she jogged over with the puppy nested in between her forearms.

The boy was already leaping off the swing before Joohyun could stop him, tumbling as he did, before getting up with a cut on his bleeding knee. And the furry Samoyed was barking pitifully, then joyously, making up the distance between the two, jumping and clashing into him with a certain finality. A promise of closure. Something that said, I'm home. 

And Seungwan, with leaves in her hair and soil on her chin, had also arrived, finally into Joohyun's arms. Joohyun could feel the weariness seeping from her skin. She was tired. She was contented.

Sitting on the bench and watching the boy and his love, they indulged in each other quietly. Between them, there was no barking, or wailing, or a tail wagging in delight. It was soundless for them, the words I missed you. 

.

.

.

She's not coming 

The phone in her purse remains silent. 

She's coming

The night lights begin to blur in Joohyun's vision. It feels colder than before. But still, she swings. 

She's not coming.