Blog

Nia had gone to visit the little shopping district where the thrift store Taehyung had worked at was.  As she walked down the street, a little café caught her eye.  She entered it and looked around.  It seemed so familiar.  That seemed reasonable enough.  She assumed she’d been in this district a lot.

She ordered a coffee and sat down in a booth.  She leaned her chin on the palm of her hand before staring outside.  And then, it came to her.

——————–

“Nia!”

She glanced up to see Tae skipping towards her.  He slid next to her in the booth and smiled.

“I found this snow globe in the back today.  My manager said it was going in the clearance bin, and I thought it was so pretty, so I bought it for your mom.”

Nia smiled. “I think she’ll love it.  She collects snow globes.”

“Really?” Tae’s grin grew.  He set the snow globe down on the table before nibbling on his lip. “Do you think they’ll like me?”

“Who wouldn’t like you?  I mean, you are pretty cute.”

He blushed, a shy smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m pretty odd, though, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but how is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t know…” he looked down at his sleeves, picking the lint off of them. “The kids at school always say I’m too weird….”

“Well, they’re wrong.  Don’t worry, my parents will love you.”

And they had.  Her mom’s smile had been so wide when Tae had handed her the snow globe, and her dad had spent the whole time talking to Tae about various things that seemed to interest both of them.

——————–

What had gone wrong?  Her parents had seemed to like him.  But it was clear now that they didn’t.

“Miss, here’s your coffee.”

Nia looked up and accepted the coffee from the server.  Instead of drinking it, she stared down into it as she thought.  She couldn’t come up with any reasonable explanation for why her parents hated Taehyung.  It didn’t seem like he’d done anything to earn their displeasure of him.

The longer she thought, the more random memories she recalled of her parents adoring him.  In fact, it seemed her mom had been the one with the idea for Taehyung to stay with her for the few months before her surgery.

By the time Nia actually took a sip of her coffee, it was cold.  She grimaced and set it back down.  Her phone started vibrating in her pocket, so she pulled it out.  Sua was calling her.

“Hey, Nia!  You want to meet for lunch?  I have a surprise.”

Nia left her coffee cup mostly full as she rushed out of the café.  It was a long walk to the nearest place she could catch a bus.

Half an hour later, she walked into what was now her favorite place to get lunch with someone.  Sua was already sitting at a table, deep in a conversation with someone on the phone.  When Nia walked up to the table, Sua smiled at her.

“Hey, Kook, she’s here.  I’ll talk to you later, ok?  Love you too.  Bye bye.”

Nia settled down into the chair across from her. “So, what’s the surprise?”

Sua smiled. “Let’s order first.”