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PRESENT

It’s supposed to be a joyous day for Rayne Ahn, yet she feels void, quite overwhelmed, and maybe a tad bit exhausted from the party Holbrok Studios is throwing on her behalf. They had rented a gallery downtown—filled with the prospective clients of the studios, the actors who filled her animated storyboards with voices, friends of friends of the people who work in the studios to find themselves in a higher position and some extras—with the best catering that the city has to offer, and she is still overwhelmed by their audacity to throw her a celebration. She rather preferred to stay home in her pajamas, hugging her pillows and have a girl’s night with her two friends in her apartment as a celebration.

Yet, here she is, in a long grey dress, looking completely almost out of place at the event as people she barely knew congratulated her. It was quite vexing when she found Jaala Edwards, the company’s kiss-ass production assistant congratulating her, even though they never spoke during production, yet bragging about her commitments in it. She is, after all, the youngest Asian female in the company to produce such a big animation production for the silver screen.

When the clock strikes ten, she excused herself from the crowds of people with the reason to get some air from the party, going to the clerk to get her black trench coat. On the way there, however, she bumped into a man in an Armani suit.

“I apologize—”

“No, it’s—”

They pulled away from each other in front of the clerk, finally glimpsing each other. Rayne gazed back to the man’s fair skin, dark black hair and his chocolate almond eyes—a familiar glimpse of the man she fell for five years ago.

“Leaving so soon from the party, sunshine?” he asked, his familiar deep voice riveting around her. She could hardly believe the eyebags under his eyes never left in the five years they didn’t see each other. If anything, the man only grew bits of facial hair on his chin.

“Hi John,” she breathed.

PAST

“His name is John Blackwell,” her roommate Frida announced, plonking on Rayne’s bed, “and he’s a cynical bastard who doesn’t appreciate the finer things in life.”

Rayne raised her eyebrows, “Sure, says the girl who uses Tinder to find her soulmate.”

“My soulmate is from Tinder, the psychic definitely says that,” Frida groaned into her pillow. “Sure, she might be lying, but I felt the presence of a man sweeping off my feet!”

“It could also be a woman,” Rayne shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

“I’m definitely swinging the other way, Ray Ray. Anyways he was asking for another date, and I’m definitely saying no to him.”

“You do realize I’m going say absolutely nothing with my almost non-existent dating life?” Rayne countered back, swiveling in her chair away from her laptop, propped open with her latest assignment. She is making her final drawing for her short animative movie and she still has to double-check if the background music she asked her friend Sari to work.

“That’s because you work too much.”

“I want to be successful as a working wo—”

“Yeah, we get it, but you also need to get laid.”

“Boohoo,” Rayne interjected, pulling the nearest pillow from her to chuck it at her cackling friend, “only you.”

“Seriously Rayne, never date law students, they just—they’re so busy with their own lives. Brings so much disappointment.”

“Date a lawyer then.”

It earned her a pillow chucked to the side of her head.

PRESENT

“Congratulations, Rayne,” he held out his hand. It feels mature, unlike the guy years prior who tugged her hand on their way to the nearest university pub. “You made it for Hollywood.”

“Thank you,” she held his hand back—firm, the way she remembered it, and calloused from his guitar playing days, “it’s a struggle to up-live this one.”

“You will have no such problem; you had a whole notebook filled with story ideas,” he says easily. “How does your father feel about this?”

She visibly stiffened, “I haven’t seen my father in years. Last time it was that disastrous dinner with—”

“He should be proud of you.”

“He should, but he still wants his only daughter to be someone like you,” she gave him a small smile, grabbing the edges of her dress. “Speaking of, how’s the law practice? I heard that hotshot case you eviscerated.”

“Oh,” he rubbed his eyes, promptly making his eyebags larger, “that took a lot of hours of scourging up evidence for certain loopholes and—”

“Still on the bad side?”

“Of sorts. It pays it dues well, though.”

“Oh.”

There was silence between them, an air of awkwardness, both not sure where to go from their non-existent small talk. It was never their strong-suit, even the day they first met.

PAST

Frida was running late again, and there is this man waiting in their living room couch tapping his fingers impatiently on the handles. A bouquet of fresh sunflowers was on his hand, and his dark hair swept up in a slick neat hair-do, something that she deduced that he would never normally do it. Maybe it’s Frida’s sick joke of telling her to stop working on her animation and start talking to actual men instead of the fantasies she drew.

His feet started tapping the hardwood floor. She has an annoying pet peeve of pitter patter sounds as she concentrated on her lines and shapes.

“Can you…stop tapping your feet?” she called out, her hand still drawing, while her eyes glazed over the screen in front of her. “It’s distracting.”

“Sorry, is she even home?” he asked, pointedly. Rayne had to check on her phone again, with messages from Frida running late because she had a date with a guy named Ramos. She eyed the fair-skinned man in front of her.

“Uh…are you sure she said yes to a second date?”

“…Yes.”

“You don’t sound sure,” she stood up from her chair to take some milk from the fridge, before twirling to take the cereal and a bowl from the cabinets.

“I’m sure she agreed to hang out again, later. Tuesday. Not really sure about the date but definitely a hang-out is implied,” he stuttered quickly.

“I’m sure she stood you up,” Rayne replied, “she’s hanging out with a guy called Ramos. It’s not my business for her dates, but you definitely are stood up.”

She proceeded to pour her cereal then her milk, continuing to do her work while eating.

“And you…are just telling me now?” he says unsurely. She looked up from her screen and eyed his poor confused ass.

“I have to finish my animation for the scholarship foundation for next semester, and you think your date with her is important as the chipotle she’s going to bring me for my late midnight snack?”

“I guess not…”

“It’s cute how you’re so worked up for my exotic skinned, colorful haired best friend, but most of her dates do end up in broken hearts—”

“I skipped out a law workshop for this. I planned out a whole afternoon,” he cried out, dropping the flowers on the floor. “Dang it.”

Truthfully, Rayne does feel badly for the guy. Her best friend does change guys ever so often, and sometimes she doesn’t work them out properly. However, some of her words rang back to her.

“You’re John? The lawyer student guy?”

He gazed up at her, and suddenly she felt chills all over her ivory skin. She dismissed it. He nodded up at her.

“On behalf of Frida, I am sorry she didn’t like the date you set up for her. On the other hand, I feel bad she stood you up,” she held out her cereal box. “Want some?”

PRESENT

“Did you invite me here, to your celebration party?” he asked, finally, after the moment of silence, breaking their sort-of awkward moment.

“I didn’t think you would actually come, uh…with the circumstance of—”

“Kaelie divorced me,” he let out a sigh, “I have been single for over a year.”

It stunned Rayne.

“You didn’t cause it, if that’s what you’re still thinking,” he told her. “We just…don’t feel right for each other, anymore.”

“Right,” she nodded at him, “right, I need to grab some air to process—”

She quickly grabbed her coat from the clerk and avoided another gaze from his alarmingly watchful eyes. Once the cool spring air washed over her, she let out another breath she didn’t know she held. It had been five years. They were sending mixed signals from each other. It was a mess of times. It hadn’t been right for her to just barge into his life, or did he barge into hers?

Someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned again to look at John, who is holding up a plate of chocolate cake. She is sure it’s illegal to bring out an actual plate of chocolate cake outside the premises.

“Parties are never your thing, Sunshine, and I wouldn’t want to celebrate your supposedly fantastic work without the person responsible in inviting me,” he says, “peace offering of chocolate cake? Or is your diet still consisting of Lucky Charms and milk?”

She sighed, her eyes trailing on the Lucky Charms then to his dark orbs. “Only on really bad days, and I accept your peace offer. I’m heading back to my apartment, though.”

“You owe me an explanation on why you invited me here,” he pushed on, pushing the plate into her hands in the process, “as a lawyer, please advocate your case.”

She held the plate tightly. She can’t believe he forgotten the promise they made.

PAST

She remembered it was a few months after he announced his engagement to Kaelie. The woman who hated her with a burning passion, yet she cannot seem to understand why she did. They were sitting in his car behind their go-to burrito place, stuffing their faces with beans, beef and mayo goodness. They had also shared a plate of nachos, and she was talking about a story idea she came up with in the middle of their meal.

“A couple who can’t have children went into the drive-thru, they are met with these cheesy delightful nachos, but they can’t eat it if they want to have children—”

He had laughed with her, his dark hair sweeping back.

The car had smelled of their burritos and their nachos, and it was a wonderful break to keep her hands from getting arthritis with her project to get the Holbrok Studios internship. He had also needed a break from his own cases that he was assigned. It worked that way with them, drive-thrus throughout the city, talking about anything and almost everything in his car, never keeping away from stories and their witty banter. For some reason, he was distancing himself from her.

She stopped talking about her story in a while, pondering about his actions.

“Why’d you stop talking, Sunshine?” he asked, when he realized she stopped, mid-bite into her burrito. “Lost in thought?”

She let out a breath, “You’re out of it. For a while, anyway. What’s definitely wrong?”

He let out one of his smiles, the one he gave when he’s trying to hide something from her. She noticed that about him on the second month they became friends when he tried surprising her with concert tickets for her favorite Indie band they listened to some weeks. Heck, she noticed a lot of things about him in their year of being just friends.

“I want you to come to my wedding to Kaelie,” he told her, surprising her to a loss of words. “It would mean so much to me if my best girl-friend comes.”

“Your fiancée hates me,” she says bluntly, “and I don’t even—”

“I promise to come to your big moment when you become a success in the animation world,” he looked at her with sauce over his lip, “just invite me when the time comes.”

He looked hopeful, dopey and happy. She rarely saw him being this way, so Kaelie must’ve made him this way. Who’s to say she didn’t want happiness for his life? He deserves it after the lengths he endured to shadow his parents.

“Fine. Don’t come at me if there’s a cat fight,” she relented.

“You wouldn’t start the fight either way, Rayne. I really doubt you would.”

PRESENT

“I’m keeping a promise to a really old friend inside his old car.”

His face became stoic. It was unmoving how much he became still.

“I meant you John,” she offered up, a hand brushing over a strand of black hair that covered her face, “anyway, I probably need a ride back—”

“Let’s do some catching up,” he offered back, a hand brushing up his neck, “I can drive you.”

He went over to the valet for his ticket, and Rayne still stared up behind him. They had ended their friendship after his wedding. This is supposed to be her last goodbye to him. Sure, she had expected it to be kind of awkward, but a catching up outside of a perfectly distracted crowd? It was a trip to drown town.

They waited together in silence, a string of breaths over each other.

“This is awkward,” he says bluntly, after a while. “I didn’t think we are going to be this awkward five years ago.”

“People can change a lot,” she says in speculation, “in five years. After what happened at your wedding, I think I can perfectly say that I screwed it up.”

“I don’t blame you,” he put his hand in his pockets, looking behind him. “Uh, hello! Your valet is taking too long!”

She stifled a laugh.

The young male who worked on the valet stand sputtered, “Well, we still need to find your car—”

“I am trying to get out of an incredibly awkward situation with her, so can you please hurry up?” John shouted exasperatedly. Rayne couldn’t help but laugh. He turned to look at her, his dark eyes gazing over her own. “It’s not funny, Rayne.”

She kept on laughing, trying to hold on the plate of chocolate cake.

His hands gripped her shoulder then, forcing her to face him, with laughter coming out from her lips. “It’s not funny, Rayne Ahn.”

“It kind of is, Blackwell,” she says in between laughs, “just like the time we snuck out of your friend Gary’s birthday party at that club, and that your car is actually stuck in the post, yet you drunkenly shouted to the valet or bouncer that they are taking too long to get your shoddy old car!”

“It was one time!” he groaned. “You can’t live it up to me now in public.”

“I was the only one there, and the only one hearing this is that young valet who is clearly trying to escape this night, so it’s still safe with me,” she says.

“What about the time we were at the movie theatre watching that animated movie with all that children around and you were swearing your mouth off at the actions in the story?” he countered.

“Hey! The Emoji Movie is a stupid movie and I believe we were there because someone didn’t want to watch Ouija,” she defended, “and yes, I still live up to the stares of mothers all around.”

She was taken aback at how he grinned at her, as if he was reliving the rush of their younger days talking back to each other over their easy friendship with each other. She can’t help but grin back at him again.

“Um, do you still,” she started again, a bit shyly this time, “drive your Prius?”

The aforementioned car stopped in front of them.

“Fortunately, I do. For sentimental reasons.”

FUTURE

“You should invest in a better car, John,” Rayne told him, one day, “with all that investment you’re putting in the future.”

He gazed at her, holding her ivory skinned hand to his own, as they strolled around the vintage thrift stores in the area of their choosing. It was one of those days where they decided to skip their responsibilities at the office and find a day for themselves.

“Our future, you mean,” he corrected, holding the bump on her stomach, “with our tiny little person.”

She raised one of her eyebrows. “Your car broke down twice just last week, why can’t you buy a new car?”

“Sentimental value, Sunshine,” he pulled her into a kiss. “How is it that for sentimental?”

“You don’t want to lose the car because you got it with me, right?” she smiled against their kiss, “and you want to share it with this little guy here.”

He pulled away from her to kiss her knuckles. “You always knew my intentions, but you are never going away from my life. I guess we can pick out a new one.”

PRESENT

She reveled at the familiarity of the car—over the interior, the strewn CDs on the middle of the dashboard, and her buried memories being with him in this very car. She strapped on the seatbelt at the passenger seat, gazing at him as he fumbled with his own. She began to let herself remember the days he would park in front of her apartment she used to share with Frida to escape her creative block. He would drive her through the Brexley College campus, or even to the city she fell in love in now, long hours into the night, talking about everything and anything. If they were hungry, they would stop by the nearest open drive thru and eat something that isn’t probably good for her body. If she was bored, she would change the CD in his car, and sing her heart out in a mini-dance party to him.

She hasn’t done that with anyone in years, not even her recent dates.

“We got this car together, remember?” he breathed out. “Is the memory pain—"

“It was a happy day, when we got this car,” she held back her tears, “you finally passed your bar exam, and I got my grant for another full-year at Brexley. We were talking about how its inconvenient for the both of us to travel the city without some actual privacy and great music, so impulsively we got the cheapest car we could find.”

“We were so young and stupid, right?”

“No, you were old but stupid,” she teased, “but it was a great day. We were sort of free from our burdens.”

He started to drive from the pavement, as she started to munch on the chocolate cake he gave her. She let herself remember he would give her food even when she didn’t ask, and vice versa. Supporting her dreams, supporting his decision on taking up the associate position, and the downfalls and pitfalls of early adulthood.

“I don’t know where your new place is,” he steered the car, “could you show me the way?”

“Actually, let’s make a pit stop to Krispy Kreme.”

“Krispy Kreme?”

PAST

“Drive.”

The guy beside her didn’t question her actions, only gripping the steering wheel tighter and driving the opposite direction. She was angry, she was fuming, and she was upset at the same time.

“Where to?” John asked her grumpily. It seemed apparent her mood washes over to him, making both of them crabby and irritable, something she pondered later. “You’re in a bad mood too, huh?”

She placed her feet on the dashboard, something she knows that annoys him.

“Hey, don’t put your legs on the dashboard, you miscreant!”

She decided to ignore him, during his aimless drive. After a while, he swerved into a hard stop, jolting her from her angry trance.

“I told you to freaking drive!” she says angrily, looking at him.

“I am not your freaking driver! What’s your freaking deal with putting your smelly feet over the dashboard, annoying me? It’s not only you who has a bad day. Kae was picking another fight with me, my boss is being annoying because I have to advocate for a nitwit, I haven’t been sleeping for two days to gather evidence to make my argument clear and my closest friend is being a jerk for putting her smelly feet on the dashboard after I make the time to actually meet her!” he panted. Rayne had never seen John blow up before, so she placed her feet down and looked down to her shoes. It became quiet for a while.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, in the eerily quiet car. “Sometimes I forget you’re not a college student too.”

“The age difference,” they say simultaneously.

She sighed, looking to the car ceiling.

“My dad called again to see if I gave up on my degree yet, so he could pay for a law school education. It was brutal mouth fight between the phone, but I guess that’s totally why my mom separated from him. I got fired from freelancing with a certain video creator, and I have no idea if Holbrok studios would take my application.”

“What did he say, specifically, that hurt you?” he says softly.

“That I am not seeing the huge picture, and that I’m not using my full potential. That being an animator is nothing as successful as being a lawyer. No offense to you, who is doing great by the way—”

“I take all your offense, Sunshine.”

She gave him a small smile, “I’m sorry you had a bad day and I took it out on you.”

“I’m not sorry I swerved to a Krispy Kreme. Doughnuts?” he offered. “So, we won’t feel too bad anymore.”

“Sure, Johnny.”

PRESENT

He pulled up to the same Krispy Kreme drive-thru that they visited on that very bittersweet day. She noted how they seemed to be dissolving away from their problems, with his divorce with his temperamental wife, her daddy issues, and the world around them.

“Did you know this is the same Krispy Kreme that we ate in that particular bad day?” she asked him, looking at him. “You were not sleeping for two days, also I had to say that you had those same eyebags for five years.”

“Very funny, Rayne,” he mutters sarcastically.

“It’s true! If anything, it’s so much bigger!”

“It’s not,” he counters.

“You were also still very buried in work, as a first year,” she provided, “and I guess you still are buried in deep.”

“Well independent defending firms do,” he pressed on, “though, I am planning to quit to go corporate.”

She didn’t say anything as he turned to the drive-thru to order a dozen glazed doughnuts, the same order as all those years ago. She didn’t say anything when he paid the nice lady at the counter for their doughnuts, even though she wanted to do so. She knew, if she said something, he wouldn’t tell his side of the story.

“You’re not going to fight me to pay for the food or ask the story?”

“It’s your story to tell,” she shrugged, “I’m not getting in that way.”

“I don’t think my job is allowing me to acquire more good deeds in the job but instead finding more evidence for the proprietor. I was not helping the victim and I hurt more people in the process,” he explained, as he parked in the parking lot of the joint, opening the box of doughnuts.

She took a doughnut.

“I’m so proud of you, though, Sunshine,” he continued. “You have managed to emancipate yourself from your father, make your first big deal production in animation, and you conquered all the odds. My life is the same for five years. Only divorced and much more broken.”

“You’re not broken, John,” she assured, biting the glazed goodness, “you just want to do something to ease your conscience.”

He snorted, “My conscience hasn’t been eased in a while.”

She held his shoulder, squeezing it.

“Mine either.”

He looked at her.

“Do you want to talk what happened at the wedding?”

“Yes.”

PAST

She made a promise to him to come, even if it means pissing Kaelie off for coming. She wore her blue summer dress and her white wedges as she sat on the very back of the procession area, trying to ease her growing feelings for John. She cursed herself for knowing her feelings for him too late—the late-night talks, the time he made himself available for her, the drive-thrus and playing the annoying pop music that he hates at times. She cursed herself for never confronting him about how she felt, and now it’s too late.

She didn’t even intend to stay for the reception. She just wants to see him be happy and be off her merry way out of his life. Maybe something positive could come off about it, he could have his two kids with her—all brunettes with dark eyes. They’ll all be heartbreakers.

“Rayne,” someone whispered behind her. She turned her back to see John’s best man, Harold, with his eyes wide in sheer panic and his fair skin turning red by the minute. “Rayne!”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s been asking for you to meet him, but you came so…close before the procession starts,” Harold interjected, “he’s freaking out.”

“Now?”

“He won’t shut up about big mistakes, telling you something and he’s playing dreaded pop music.”

“That can’t be good,” Rayne stood up from her seat and let Harold lead her in to his dressing room. When Harold let her in, she is very much surprised to find him on the floor covering his eyes with a suit sleeve, listening to Taylor Swift, no…mouthing the words to the song.

Definitely something wrong.

She laid down next to him.

“Harold, if it’s you. I don’t want to do this wedding now—”

“Sunshine’s here,” she sing-songed next to his ear.

He lifted himself from the floor, literally shooting up like a weed. “Rayne!”

“The one and only,” she picked up his phone and turned off the music, “Taylor Swift? You always hated it when I played it in your car.”

“I’m in a morally induced dilemma,” he staggered back and forth in the tiny room. “I think I have cold feet. Do you think I’m rushing into this wedding?’

“A bit, I mean…six months then a proposal?”

“Even you think so!” he shouted. “Should I call this off? Oh God, the money for the wedding, this charade and Kaelie’s face—”

“John,” she held his hand, pulling herself up to meet his face. “What do you see at the end of the line?”

“I see angry—”

“Close your eyes,” she pulled her palms in front of his eyes. “Imagine your dream wedding in a courthouse—”

“I have style, Rayne. No courthouses,” he interjected.

She let out a snort, “In a special place then, possibly a rooftop with all your favorite people, and Harold as your best man, and the officiator…”

He relaxed under her eyes, imagining it.

“Next to you,” she continued, “then the march goes on, I think because Kaelie loves that big white—”

“Well she does. You know my style is more…our song.”

“Yellow by Colplay is playing,” she said, annoyingly, “stop cutting me off.”

He stilled.

“And there’s that someone at the end of the aisle, walking towards you,” her hand started to tremble, shaking in tremor. “She’s probably wearing something she really likes, and she’s holding flowers she chose from the florist you like to visit. She’ll probably company you to eat cereal at one in the morning, you get to wake up next to her, and she’s the one,” she took a deep breath, “you would definitely take in drive-thru runs, grocery runs, singing in the car together to what you call bad music—”

She chuckled, looking down.

“She’s going to be your best friend for life, John. So who do you—”

“You.”

PRESENT

“You left me after that,” he tells her, as they munched on the two last doughnuts. “Why?”

“I don’t want to ruin your relationship with her,” she looked down on the illegal empty plate in front of her. “You seem so happy with her, and she was determined to be your one and only. I couldn’t get away with that for hurting her. Plus, I was nothing for you.”

“That’s not true, Rayne,” he turned to her, chucking the empty Krispy Kreme box to the backseat. “You were my best friend.”

“You know that’s not true,” she scoffed.

They stared at each other, speckles of brown meeting black orbs, as they weighed in on the heavy realization.

“It’s not true,” he gave in, pulling out his phone, “it’s never true.”

She clenched her hand into a fist, as she saw him fumble with his phone to pull out a recording.

“Two nights before the wedding, Kaelie picked another fight with me. You know, the usual. I never take the wedding seriously, or I never gave her much attention. Or I was just, always so caught up in work, never taking the time off and when I do, I always sleep or she thinks it’s not serious. In all that fighting, all I could think about is being in a car with you.”

She was shaking, the tears streaming down her face.

“I should’ve…broken up with her, or something,” he bit his lip, “talked about if we rushed into this too quickly. All that, I realized something very constant in my life, at the time. You.”

He nudged his phone to her.

“I recorded something, that day in the car. I think it’s supposed to be a message for you.”

She held his phone on her hands, still shaking beneath the tears, before pressing the red play button.

“I’m on my way to your place, Sunshine. I can’t do this wedding with her berating on you. How could she be mad at you? You weren’t even speaking with her for more than five minutes. I know you both have issues with each other, but no one speaks shit like that about my best friend. I’ll probably get some cereal first on the way there, I think. It’s a bit after midnight, I hope you’re still up, Rayne? Why aren’t you answering? Are you catching up on some sleep?”

Silence.

“Okay, if you’re mad at me, or not listening, I’m sorry for whatever I did. I can’t lose our cereal talks, or our drive thru runs around the city. Or picking weird movies in the theatre together and swearing it off for its mistakes, like the film geek you are. Watching you work on your animation into late at night as I finish my acquisitions together. Maybe even going to the park for a tiny break of picnic. Maybe preferably if the weather is a bit windier. Like spring. Sorry, I’m rambling, and I think I just want my best friend back. If she doesn’t want to, well…it’s her loss.”

Stupid John, she thought under her eyes brimming with tears.

“I didn’t realize it was recording not call,” he explained. “I found out before the wedding.”

She didn’t dare to look to the man beside her.

“I think…the moment you closed my eyes and let me imagine what I actually wanted in my future,” he said heavily, “I can only think of you.”

“I fell in love with you,” she blurted, surprising him.

There was more silence in the car. Just the sound of the air around them and the blinking lights of the joint illuminating them.

“But you were happy,” she faced away from him, “you were really happy with her. I can’t…take the happiness away from you.”

He took her hand, squeezing it.

“Do you know why I call you Sunshine?” he asked her.

She shook her head, still not facing him.

“As cheesy at it sounds, you are the sunshine to my rain. The good in all my bad days, sticking to me when I’m tired and unbothered. My bad dates. The episodes of my life that I feel are important. You truly make me the happiest.”

She slowly turned to face him again, strands of hair falling in front of her face.

“I love you, Rayne Ahn. The moment you offered me cereal. The moment you didn’t flinch when I had that one bad day. The moment you came to my dressing room and made me realize that I do, in fact, love you very much.”

She pulled him into a hug, the empty plate on her lap falling to the carpeted floor, as she jerked her body into his seat, letting her tears spill freely on his suit jacket. In the darkness of his car, with neon lights illuminating over them, she could feel his own spill on her skin.

FUTURE

Rayne Ahn was back on her breakfast bar, with her touchpad and her pen, drawing up a storyboard for the latest script she uncovered from her boss. She’s still working on her own script, all these years, but she’ll get there one day.

The doorway to her apartment opened up, with its hinges creaking. Her head shot up to the familiar dark-haired man, still with eyebags under his eyes but a happy peaceful smile etched on his face. She smiled back, getting down her stool to hug him, smelling his familiar scent, the feeling of his body against hers. He furled his arms around her as well, placing a soft kiss on her hair.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked, pulling away, slightly, just to see his face still smiling at her. “What’s got you so loopy?”

“You, Sunshine,” John cooed, and she really pulled away from him the moment he decided to be cheesy. He let out a laugh at her antics, before pulling her close to him again.

“I’m going into mergers now of companies, and I get to start this Monday.”

She still smiled at him. “Celebratory dinner for two…of Kimchi Fried Rice?”

“Yes, please,” he replied, now taking off his coat, “and I got your message today before the interview.”

“Oh,” she decided to play coy, once she cleaned up the breakfast bar, “what did I say?”

“That you’ll be happy with me, whatever I decide.”

“What’s your response?”

“I’m so happy right now, because you are there with me.”

She tried to hide her smile.

PRESENT

“So what are we now?” he asked her breathlessly.

“Trying again,” she squeezed his hand against hers, “without mixed messages.”