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Chapter 3: A Beautiful Love Story: The Kiss of a Raven – April 18, 2021

“Incognito,” murmured the masked man.

He was sitting in a chair at the very back of the little cafe.  Minsu had just walked in, bought herself a cup of coffee and a cookie, and headed for his table.   He had set a chair directly behind his, their backs touching.  She sat down in it and placed her coffee and cookie on the table to her right and his left.

Then she murmured, “You can take off the ski mask.  I promise not to turn around.”

“All right,” he whispered again in that raspy voice.

“Is there something wrong with your voice?” she asked suddenly.

He was in the middle of pulling the mask off.  His heart dipped at her question.  “No.  Do you think there is?”

“No, no!” she rushed to assure him.  “I just, I thought you were whispering the other night because we were outside in the dark at night…”. She let her voice trail off, unsure of what to say now.  

But then, in the intervening silence, she decided to admit to her greatest flaw.  She was afraid she’d embarrassed him.  She wanted him to know she understood the pain of having a voice that was less than perfect.  If they truly became friends, he’d probably find out someday anyway.   

“Sometimes I have a stutter.  Especially when I’m nervous.”

“You’ve don’t have a stutter around me,” he responded truthfully.  “Does that mean I don’t make you nervous?”

She smiled.  He did make her nervous.  But not in a bad way.

She cleared her throat.  “Umm.”  How truthful should she be?  “You give me butterflies,” she whispered.

She couldn’t see the smile that lit up his face, traveling all the way up to his eyes as well as all the way down to his heart.  

“I do?” he whispered in awe.

Something about that voice made her heart shift violently in her chest.  Without thinking about it, she almost turned around to look at him.

“Yes.”  Just thinking about kissing him again caused a whole colony of the fluttering creatures to erupt into a chorus of echoing wings that threatened her ribcage.

“Can I – can I hold your hand?” he suddenly asked.  Completely melting her heart.

“Sure,” she murmured.  “But which one?”

She felt his fingers suddenly, tentatively sliding along her left hand.  Tiny tingles were now invading the skin of that hand.  She reached out and received the attention of his fingers.  He wrapped his around hers, and the heat of his palm invaded hers.  She closed her eyes to savor it.

After a while, she spoke.  “I could wear a blindfold.”

“What?” 

He was lost in the wonder of holding her precious hand.  Her warmth was radiating into him, making him desire more.  An embrace, another kiss, to hold her hand like this forever.

“We could meet for dinner and face each other at the table.  I’ll wear a blindfold.”

“You wouldn’t feel weird?”

“I would.  But it might be an interesting experience.  And you could order for me.  We’ll go somewhere I like to eat so I’ll know ahead of time what I want.  If our waitress looks at us funny, we’ll just tell her it’s an experiment.”

He swallowed.  Was he willing to take this charming girl out on a date where she was blindfolded?  “Perhaps I’ll wear one too.  I’d feel less self-conscious then, I think.”

She giggled.  “You’d feel less self-conscious?  But I’d be the one blindfolded.”

“Yeah, but you’d be oblivious to people’s wide-eyed stares.”

She sighed.  “That sounds blissful.  Perhaps I’ll go through the rest of my life blindfolded.”

He turned around then and looked at the back of her head.  She couldn’t see the pain that pierced his gaze in that moment.  She continued speaking.

“Besides, if you wear a blindfold, we’ll both be in the dark, and who will help me to see?  I might need your instruction to use my chopsticks and find my food.”

“Maybe we should make it ice cream instead of dinner.  It’d be a lot easier to keep track of an ice cream cone than kimchi and rice.”

“True.  But blind girls manage it somehow.”

She squeezed his hand then.  She was causing his heart to do somersaults.  Now his stomach was joining the fray.  He swallowed.  He felt so nervous.  

Why?  

She couldn’t see him.  Still.  His heart was racing away with him.  Like a wild horse suddenly untethered.  But he didn’t want to run away from her. 

“I miss our garden.  I really want to pull you into my arms again and dance,” he whispered.

The breath of those promising words wrapped around her with delight.  And something deeper.  Something that invaded her core and caused a bubble of heat to blossom deep within her.  

She swallowed.  “Me too,” she admitted. 

Suddenly, she offered, “We could go visit my friends.  We could eat dinner with them.  I’ll wear the blindfold.  I would know I was perfectly safe surrounded by them.  And they wouldn’t care what your face looks like.”

He took a deep breath.  “Tell me about them.”

“Well, the girl is my best friend.  Yura.  She’s amazing.”  But then her voice turned sad.  “She made a mistake in high school.  She’d been with a guy she truly loved for years, but then she went insane for a season and thought she fell in love with his enemy.  And hers too.  She got pregnant and married the jerk.  And he was just awful to her.  Lots of affairs.  And emotional abuse too.  She found the courage to leave him when he shoved her into a wall one night.  She took her baby and walked out.  She was a single mom for a long time.  But then, the most beautiful thing happened.”

He was breathless.  His heart already moved by the plight of her young friend.

“Her little boy’s preschool teacher ended up being her first love.”

“What?  That’s amazing!”

“It was.”  She blushed as she remembered how attracted she was to Jin initially.  “But she didn’t know because I took her son to school for the first week.  So you can imagine how awkward things were for a while when she finally did meet him.  But by that time, he was already in love with her son, and Minhyuk just adores Jin.

“But Jin thought she was still married to his archenemy.”  Humor laced her voice.  “That’s what they always call her ex-husband.  Some joke from their school days.  But Jin is such a doll that he offered to babysit for her while she worked one night, and he discovered the crappy, little apartment she lived in at the time.  And no pictures of his archenemy.  So when she came home, he confronted her and discovered she no longer had a husband.  Jin had been in love with her all those years.  Now they’re happily married.”  She sighed.  “Isn’t that a beautiful story?”

“It is.  It’s amazing!” He felt his heart tumbling again.  

“Jin did the sweetest things to woo her.  She believed she didn’t deserve him because she’d hurt him so badly when she’d cheated on him in high school with that jerk.  But Jin was so patient.  He just kept overwhelming her with kindness.  Doing the sweetest things for her.  And her son.  Whom he truly adores.  It’s such a sweet story.”  

She sighed again.  Her heart longing for her own beautiful story.

He could hear her heart yearning for something.  His own gave a pang.

Would she someday think they had a beautiful story?  Would she recognize the effort he’d gone to in wooing her?  How patient he had been?  Even now, he was plotting his next several moves.

“You know,” she murmured.  “I know we’re being mysterious, but is there some name I can call you?”

“What name would you like to call me?” he rasped.

Why did that husky voice make her heart tremble?

When she didn’t speak, he asked sheepishly, “May I call you Moonbeam?”

She gasped, and tears filled her eyes.  He was so romantic.  

“Yes,” she breathed.  “I’ll call you Raven.”

He smiled.  “Raven?”

“Because you came to me in the darkness with your black hair gleaming blue like a raven’s wing.”

He grinned at her fancifulness.  But, really, was it any more fanciful than Moonbeam?

“I like it,” he murmured.

“So…tell me about yourself.  Do you have any family?”

“Both my parents and a sister.  And lots of extended family.”

She smiled.  “I have my parents.  And extended family.”

“No siblings?”

“Nope.  Only me.”

He detected the sadness in her voice.  

“That makes you sad?”

“What?”

“Being an only child.  You sound sad.”

“Um…I…I’ve never pleased my appa.  I’ve always thought that if I’d had an older brother, perhaps he would have distracted my appa, taken his attention away from me.  Made him happy.”

“You think you’ve never pleased your appa?  What makes you think so?”  He wanted to probe this mystery.

She felt tears rising.  “Umm.  He’s always called me stupid and acted like I can’t do anything right.  W-when I w-was l-little…”

She stopped.  She was stuttering again.  Her heart sank.  She hated stuttering.  But whenever she thought of Appa, she felt so insecure.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Raven’s voice was a sweet caress.  He squeezed her hand.  

But then he dropped it.  And she felt bereft again.  Those tears spilled down her cheeks.  He’d pulled away from her.  

Why?

But suddenly, he was there, kneeling in front of her, the mask covering his face.  “Can we step outside?  I want to hold you in my arms.”  His voice was still a gentle whisper.

Her heart melted.  “What?  I…okay.”  She glanced back at her coffee and cookie.

He reached down and picked them up.  “Come on.”

They went outside and wandered down the block until they’d found a bench.  He put her cookie bag and coffee cup under it so they wouldn’t be disturbed.  Then he turned back towards her.  He held his arms out to her.  “May I?”

Suddenly, a sob broke loose from her, and she fell forward into those waiting arms.  And she remembered the one guy who had always been there for her.  For a sweet season of her life.  The one she’d pushed away.  The one she had failed to love as he had loved her.  

She missed him so badly.  She missed his friendship.  And his comforting arms.  And his kisses on her forehead.

She began to weep against Raven’s chest.  She hugged him tight.  Could he perhaps solace her heart over the loss of her best friend?  

Hobi had returned to Busan sometime late last year, but he hadn’t informed her.  She’d run into him at Namjoon and Eunji’s wedding.  She hadn’t really known them well. But they had ordered some treats for their wedding from the coffee shop where she worked, and they’d invited her to come for the reception when she dropped off the cookies.

Hobi’s presence at that wedding had shocked her.  She hadn’t known he was in Busan.  However, his presence had disturbed her for another reason.  He had changed.  His appearance was different somehow.  But she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.  

All she knew was that it had awakened feelings in her heart she’d never had before.  Not for Hobi anyway.  She’d felt attracted to him.  Like she wanted to taste his lips.  The knowledge of it had shocked her.  But he had, once again, faded from her life.  She hadn’t seen him since the wedding.

She couldn’t see him.  For, as she had become aware of those strange, new emotions blooming in her heart, she had glanced up at the girl on his arm.  Only to discover that in his absence, he had acquired a girlfriend.  A strikingly beautiful one.  If Hobi had once looked Minsu’s way, he never would again.  Not with a paragon of such beauty clinging to him.  Minsu had turned away, suddenly quite saddened, and disappeared into the night.  

She had spent a short season of her life working with him.  Living with him.  Her time with Hobi had been shockingly sweet.  And terribly brief.  But it was over now.

Why was she sobbing so hard?  Had her appa hurt her this deeply?  His arms tightened about her.  He nearly tore the mask off.  But something gave him pause.

“I miss him so much,” she murmured.

He frowned.  “What?  Who?”

“Hobi.”

He stilled.  Then he bent and scooped her up in his arms as he sat down on the bench.  He planted her in his lap, his arms still surrounding her.  He inhaled her sweet fragrance.

He had identified it.  

Strawberries.

She smelled of strawberries.  He could bury his nose in her hair all day long.  Now he realized what memory it had stirred.  

Strawberry milk.  

He’d always loved it as a kid.  He still loved it.  And she smelled like it.  She was certainly as sweet as his childhood favorite.

“Who is Hobi?” he queried.

“My best friend.  I mean, he was my best friend.  But he moved away almost a year ago.  We lost touch.  I saw him once, but…”

“But?”

“He’s changed.  He’s not the same anymore.  And he,” she inhaled sharply.  “He has a girlfriend.”

“That’s not a good thing?”

“It is.  I’m glad he’s happy.  She’s so beautiful.  Raven, if you could see her, you wouldn’t even look at me.  It’s no wonder Hobi was blind to me when I ran into him.  His eyes must have been full of her.”

His heart hurt.  He could hear the pain in her voice.  “She couldn’t possibly be as beautiful as you are.”

She scoffed.  “You are very sweet.  But I can assure you that I am quite plain, and she was ravishingly beautiful.  I bet he took one look at her and completely forgot my name.  It’s no wonder he stopped texting me.  I was forgotten.”  She mumbled the last.  “As I always am.”  Naru had forgotten her too.

“I could never forget you, Moonbeam.”

She lifted her face to gaze up at him.  “You are so sweet, Raven.  I hope it’s true.  Because there is no way I could forget you either.”

He stared down at her beautiful face and was overcome by longing.  He reached up and shoved the mask up over his nose.  She furrowed her brow.  

“What are you doing?”

“This,” he responded in a light rasp right before his head bent and his lips brushed hers before clinging to them.

She was swamped by longing herself as those soft lips claimed hers in a very sweet kiss.  Her fingers played with the hair on the back of his head.  She absentmindedly ran her fingers through it as she concentrated on his lips dancing along hers.

This boy knew how to kiss!  He wasn’t overwhelming her or making her feel like he wanted to conquer her.  His lips seemed to be speaking very tenderly to her own.  She lifted her face and enjoyed that kiss.  And the comfort he’d brought along with it.  He was trying to lift her heart.  She could feel it.  She kissed him again as he drew slightly away.  

Then she whispered across his lips.  “Thank you.”

She felt his smile.

––

She was basking in the warmth of those lips.  She never wanted to leave this moment.  Or this man.   What was it about Raven that she always felt completely accepted by him?

Of course, she’d only spent about an hour in his presence.  Still…

There was something different about him.  

She just hoped this was real.  

Was she dreaming it?   Conjuring him up in her imagination because she was so tired of being alone?  Of hurting all the time.  Of feeling like she would never be good enough for anyone.

She could have had Hobi.  It was the thought that had been tormenting her for months.  She could have been with him.  He had been so crazy about her.  He probably would have married her.  But she had pushed him away.  Before she realized how she really felt about him.

Was she destined to always pick guys who would only hurt her?

He felt her tense.  He drew his lips away from hers.  “What’s wrong?”  He still had his arms wrapped around her.

Her eyes were still closed.  “I’ve dreamt you up, haven’t I, Raven?  You don’t really exist, do you?  My loneliness has created a dream man.  I couldn’t find you in real life, so my imagination spun me a happy tale, and I’ve gotten so sucked into it that you seem real.”

“No.  I’m real enough.”  His whisper floated over her lips.

“Are you?  Really?”  She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, her eye taking note of his mouth.  And the bottom of his nose.  Most of his face was still hidden.  “I don’t suppose I would have dreamed up the ski mask.  That’s so bizarre that even the greatest of authors would probably never think to add that twist.”

He laughed.  “It is pretty strange!  But it was your idea, so you did dream it up!”

“Hmm.”  She glanced back up into his beautiful eyes.  “Why do you like me?”

“Who says I like you?” he bent so close their lips almost brushed.

She went cross-eyed trying to meet his gaze.  Her heart was tumbling around in her chest.  Trying to break free.  She felt such an aching in her soul, she gasped.

“I’m sorry.  I thought you did.” 

She should have known better.  Guys always wanted one specific thing from her.  Outside of that, they had no use for her.  

Except for Hobi.  He’d been different.

She started to wriggle free, but his arms tightened around her.

“I do like you.”  His words were a breath that floated across her cheek.  

His mouth found that cheek and began to drop a series of kisses across it.  Soft, indescribably sweet kisses.  Like those butterflies had escaped her stomach to land on her cheek.  Her eyes fluttered shut.  And she reveled in his touch.

And in the sound of that husky voice.  What was it about those four simple words that held such power over her?  He had breathed them into her soul, and they had taken root in her heart.  Making her want to cling to him and never let go.

Honestly, it was scary.  She barely knew him.  Yet his voice and his kisses were wreaking havoc on the inside of her.  If only she understood why she felt so drawn to him.  Or to any of them.

Why had she felt so attracted to Naru?  She didn’t know how to prevent the kind of injury he had caused her.  Because she didn’t know what had drawn her towards him in the first place.  If she had understood that, then perhaps she could prevent herself from falling into another destructive relationship.  

The thing was…she had no Hobi to protect her this time.  If this man was out to hurt her, she was setting herself up for a fall right now.  But the tender brush of his lips across her cheek was undoing her.  And his arms were innocently threaded around her own.  His hands weren’t roaming.  

So she decided to simply concentrate on those lips.  

She was confined by darkness.  Her eyes closed to the evening.  But this circumstance seemed to amplify her sense of touch.  And she fell in love with those lips on her skin.  She could feel them drawing her in, but she didn’t care.  She wanted to follow them.  She wanted to feel them.  Always.  Leaving a trail of adoration on her skin.

She was barely breathing; she was sitting so still within the circle of his arms now.  He gazed down at her with devotion burning in his gaze.  She had no idea how he truly felt about her.  How he had yearned for such a long time to hold her like this.  To brush his lips across her soft skin.  To taste her sweet mouth.  To breathe in the scent of strawberries again.

As his lips approached her nose, he slid the blade of his own across the bridge of hers.  Slowly, lovingly.  Before his lips blazed a trail across her other cheek.  Finally, those lips traveled towards her mouth.  They planted a kiss along its corner.  She turned her head then to find his lips with her own.

And wondered what on earth had gotten into her.  She hadn’t really enjoyed kissing Naru.  Though, in the beginning, before he’d tried to breach the inside of her mouth, she couldn’t have said why his kiss sparked no joy within her heart.  But this man’s kiss – his multitude of kisses – awoke such a gladness within her that she felt like she was flying.  

So she turned her head into that kiss and met his lips with her own.  For several long moments, they sat, perfectly still, their lips pressed tenderly together while their hearts beat in unison.  She could hear their breath.  And feel the cool night air on her cheeks.  But the warmth of his regard was raising her temperature.  Between the heat of his ardor and the warmth of his arms, she was protected from any chill.

The two of them created a touching tableau that several passersby stopped moving to watch momentarily.  The only odd thing about the moment was that one of the lovers’ faces was half-covered by a black mask.