Jimin sat in the girl’s home studying its walls. It was a studio apartment, its bedroom, living room, and kitchen all blending into one large space. He looked up. The ceiling must be twenty feet off the ground. And someone was in the process of covering its walls with magnificent, impressionistic murals.
He examined each one. The artist had used subtle shades of all the colors of the rainbow coupled with white and gray to paint both landscapes and portraits. His favorites were the ones containing the faces of small children. In these works of art, the tiny kids were almost always laughing. The keen eye that had painted them had captured their expressions perfectly. Jimin could almost hear their laughter. It made him smile.
There was an amazing amount of natural light filtering in from the tall windows at the top of both the western and southern walls of her apartment. He could see that this location was an artist’s dream come true. His rescuer must be the painter. She lived here after all. But then an unwelcome thought occurred to him. Immediately, he wondered why it was unwelcome. He had realized she might not live alone. She might have a boyfriend or a husband, and he found that this thought depressed him. But why? What was it to him if she had a lover?
Yet he still couldn’t shake the tendrils of sadness that had begun to snake around his heart at this realization. He had the sudden urge to check out her bedroom to see if it also contained the possessions of a man. Then he remembered that the room he was sitting in was also part of her bedroom. He stood up and walked over to the bed. It was a full-sized bed. That gave no definitive answer. She had a small dresser. He was so tempted to open a drawer, but he didn’t want to invade her privacy just to mollify his curiosity. Then he happily realized that dresser wasn’t even big enough to hold the clothes of most women, let alone to be shared by both a man and a woman. He was suddenly so happy he felt slightly drunk. Why was he over the moon just because he’d come to the conclusion that she lived alone?
He turned and limped back to the kitchen. His ankle still hurt. It was throbbing now. He should have remained seated with his foot elevated. He sat down in the chair again and put his foot up on the opposite chair. His stomach chose that moment to growl. He’d never gotten his dinner. He wondered if Tae was sitting in a restaurant somewhere enjoying a fine meal with a pretty girl he’d just met on the street. Perhaps she’d helped him escape from tragedy too.
—
It was almost as though Jimin could read Tae’s mind. Except Tae was not ordering dinner in a fine French restaurant. He was seated on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a square, sharing a loaf of crusty French bread with that pretty rescuer Jimin had imagined.
Before visiting the bakery, they’d entered the clothes shop, and Tae had found and purchased an oversized, olive green hoodie to wear. He’d considered it a gift for Jungkook that he himself was going to wear for a little while tonight. He’d asked the clerk to cut off the tags before he pulled it over his head, the hood half covering his face.
“That’s better,” the girl with the chestnut hair had responded.
Now, several minutes later, Tae used a plastic knife to spread butter on warm bread. He watched as the creamy spread began to melt on the slice of freshly baked bread. He held it to his mouth and took a huge bite. The salty savor of the butter slid over his tongue to mix with the warm yeastiness of the French baguette. It was so delicious! Jungkook would be in heaven. But Tae was being transported upward by something else entirely. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the face of the lovely woman seated next to him on the fountain’s edge.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
She focused those odd, fiery eyes of hers on his for a moment before staring out into space. He was sorry to lose sight of those burning flames. They’d been keeping him warm.
“Let’s not destroy the mystery. Whatever we have in this moment is fleeting. No names. No expectations. Let’s just enjoy the moment.”
Disturbed, Tae responded, “How do you know it’s fleeting?”
“Because I leave Paris the day after tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I’m headed to Germany for my next assignment.”
“I travel a lot too. I might run into you somewhere else. I won’t know how to greet you then.”
She laughed. “You’re a dreamer, aren’t you? The world is a wide-open space. The chances of us meeting again are pretty slim, wouldn’t you agree?”
His eyes had grown sad, so she sought to comfort him. “All right. You seem like a nice guy. How about you give me a name?”
“What?” Tae stared at her.
“If you and I were to become friends, and we each had to identify the other in our own personal way, what would you call me?”
Tae considered her, studying her from the top of her head to her toes before meeting her gaze once again.
She took pity on him. “I’ll go first. So, I caught you fleeing from a mob. Now you sit before me with intense eyes that seem very faraway sometimes. Dark hair, dark eyes, lithe frame,” she studied him too before their eyes collided again. “Sweet smile. Kind face. Honestly, you remind me of a baby bear.”
The echoes of her words reverberated all the way down and throughout his bones. Baby Bear. It was what his family had called him from birth.
“Help me out. Where are you from? You’re very exotic looking, so I can’t quite place it. And your accent is just adorable, but I can’t identify it either.”
“South Korea.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Cool! I think it would be kind of weird to call you ‘Baby Bear.’ I would draw people’s attention. What Korean name means ‘Bear’?”
“Woong.” It slipped from his lips unthinkingly.
“Wooooong,” she drew it out on purpose, then she grinned. “I dub thee Woong then!”
Woong. He liked it. He now had a name only she knew. He smiled at her as he considered her. “I’m going to call you Woong too.”
“What? Why? I remind you of a bear?”
He shook his head. “Not in the slightest. You remind me of a raging fire. But Woong has an alternate meaning. In Korean, both words are pronounced the same, though the symbols for them are different.”
She stared at him waiting for him to enlighten her. No response was forthcoming.
“Woong, what does the other Woong mean?” she asked him, a little exasperated. He was staring intently at her again with a blank expression on his face.
He blinked. “Hero.”
