2025-05-02 - Date at Sunset

Ash was there early, dressed down out of uniform in khaki cargo pants and buttoned down black shirt. He likes to wear sleeves rolled up, and took his food from the diner on a tray as he leads the way to a park bench on the lakefront beach. The small talk on the way here has mostly been about work things, though he looked positively worried up until Iseul showed up.

Did he think she wouldn't come? Nooo, even having utilized the hour they'd allotted after shifts ended to change out of her work clothes into a perfectly precious spring outfit and do something pretty with her hair, Iseul still showed up on time. A few minutes early, even. Her smiles were shy at first, but during the course of the walk to the beach, she seems to have relaxed a bit, even laughing as she shared an anecdote about a particularly goofy kid she took care of for a while in the afternoon.

He sets his tray on the bench facing west so he faces the sunset, leaving room for Iseul to sit next to him. Ash invites gently, “I hope you don’t mind sitting next to me. I did this whole mental thing about like, should I sit across from you? Or should I try to move the bench around? But then I thought that would look like I was overthinking things and even if I am overthinking things the important thing is not to look like it.”

Hence he settled on trying to sit beside her, though he isn’t sitting until she does.

Iseul catches her bottom lip between her teeth briefly, but it does nothing to hide the helpless smile that his words have given rise to. "What if you wind up looking like you're overthinking about overthinking?" she teases, then without any further pause, settles herself lightly onto the bench beside him, exactly where he'd indicated.

“Oh god. I’d totally look like a moron and strike out. You would never talk to me again.” Hence he settled says this with a grin while sitting down and watching her, taking a deep breath. “So…hi. You’re really pretty, by the way. I love your hair.” His smile is broad, genuine, and just a little bit anxious. “I grew up in Seattle.” The anxiety might be why that just got blurted, but it’s at least relevant to sharing personal information!

If he's facing the sun, that means it's going to be setting behind her, and casting its gorgeous light over him. She's doomed, in that case. The blurtation -- unintentionally abrupt or effusive statements made while engaging in anxiety-laden flirtation -- draws a soft laugh from her. "I've always wanted to go there. Seattle, I mean. It seems like such a relaxed place." To her credit, she's handling his compliment about her appearance pretty well, though there's a tinge of color at her cheeks, naturally. He seems to have that effect on her.

Often.

"I grew up in Seoul, but moved here to the States with my family when I was sixteen." Which might be why there are traces of an accent when she speaks, now and then.

Without effort he switches to Korean, his accent a little awkward but perfectly understandable. Yeong-Su may be Korean by heritage but he’s definitely grown up American. “My family speaks Korean at home but my brother and sister and I don’t speak it enough for Mother. She thinks we’re too American but then my brother tells her she’s the one who moved here, and then they fight.”

And then he laughs, because it’s obvious he misses them a little. Even a memory of his family fighting is a fond one.

“I have grandparents in Seoul, and aunts and uncles. You know how it is. Why did you end up here?”

Iseul's eyes widen slightly and then flood with delight at hearing her native language rolling off his tongue, even if it sounds a touch 'American.' Yes, he just scored major points.

"My father was transferred, for work. Big financial holding company out in New York," she explains. Thus far, she's completely forgotten about her food, her focus residing solely upon him. "Have you ever been to visit your family over there? How long has it been since you were back home to Seattle?"

“A few times yeah like on the holidays we would go, yes! And then the kids there would call us The Americans.” Yeong-Su rolls his eyes about that, as if to dismiss the jerks in the old country. “I only moved out here from Seattle at the start of the semester. I’m a grad student earning my MBA right now and started working here to you know…support that. And then I found out it’s weird and we get magic here!”

Where else does that happen?

"Right?" Iseul seems both mirthful and awestruck by the whole idea of it, adding, "As soon as it happened to me, I just knew I needed to spend more time here, explore both the possibilities on a personal level and its effects on other people." A beat. "I got my master's in psychology, so I'm not taking an interest in others' experiences for some weird reason, honest," she feels the need to clarify, smile a little sheepish.

He watches her for a moment, sipping his drink. Then he asks, “Wait, what kind of powers did you get? It’s not mind control, is it?” Eyes widen. Yes, the idea of Iseul controlling minds is already taking hold…

Visibly aghast at the very notion of it, Iseul is quick to shake her head. "No, nothing at all like that." She's forced to pause a moment though, considering. "Well, related I suppose, but there's no control aspect to it -- I can pick up on what other people are feeling, though it can be a little overwhelming when I'm in a crowd. And sometimes I can calm someone down who's angry or afraid, or heighten something that someone's already feeling, but I have no influence at all on emotions that people aren't already feeling."

Anxiety flickers over her features, and she makes a not wholly subtle attempt to veer. "I can also play with illusions, a little. Which can be fun, with the kids."

To his credit Yeong-Su doesn’t look completely relieved, in the sense that he probably wasn’t super worried in the first place. He instead offers, “I can become intangible and control shadows. And kind of turn into shadow. It’s really cool but scares people so I haven’t really shown it off much. Walking through walls is handy though. If someone gets stuck somewhere I can get them out.”

"I may call on you for rescue at some point, then," Iseul notes, gradually easing toward relaxation again. "I'm a bit of a clutz at times, so getting myself turned around or stuck is a definite possibility."

As the sun sinks toward the horizon behind her, its light grows more golden, fiery. And now it's her turn to succumb to blurtation: "Your eyes look like molten honey when the sunlight hits just right..."

For once it’s his turn to look abashed. Yeong-Su tries to salvage it by instead turning it around on her. “You look like an angel the way the sun lights you up from behind. I guess I should’ve asked if you were single, just to be sure…”

Sure she did agree to a date but it never did get explicitly asked.

"Oh yes. My parents are pretty annoyed at my resistance to them setting up blind dates for me, so I'm very single," Iseul admits with a laugh. Because yes, that's still a thing, over in Korea. Parents love to pick their own sons and daughters in law, if they can.

Maybe, just maybe, with the light behind her, it won't be as easy to see the blush that colors her cheekbones. "And you? I mean, I don't want to assume... besides which, I can't imagine how someone like you would be single..."

“I just moved here and had a break up in December and was really only feeling ready again like…well kind of when I saw you.” That last part comes out quieter and almost like he wanted not to say it. The words insisted on coming out and parading in front of Iseul though, stripping down to nothing and holding up picket signs declaring REVEALED FEELINGS HERE. Yeong-Su’s eyes suddenly find his food very interestIng as he takes a moment to say, “I just hoped I wasn’t staring too much. I was trying not to come off like a creep.”

"I must've been doing a much better job of hiding it than I thought I was, then," Iseul notes, an embarrassed laugh lending her voice a slight quaver, "Because otherwise, you would've seen that I spent most of the night watching you."

Oh look! She's got fresh fruit sitting there on her tray, looking all juicy and ripe. And she seems suddenly very focused on prodding a perfectly spherical bit of watermelon with her fingertip, guiding it around the inner edge of the bowl.

“Oh no I saw you looking.” he admits with a grin. “That’s why I took a chance on coming to ask you out. I was like hey she’s looking a lot. Maybe she’ll say yes.” Then his eyes lift and land on her face, searching her eyes. He just allows himself to really look at her, no pretense, no looking away. Just drinking in Iseul and her beautiful eyes.

As her dreams and hopes of her staring having gone unnoticed are utterly dashed, Iseul bites down a little into the softness of her lower lip, and seems intent on continuing to watch that watermelon ball in its halting circuit around the interior of the bowl, over and around the odd grape, the misshapen chunk of kiwi, and the like. Far easier than looking him in the eye, knowing that her initial attraction to him was so painfully obvious.

"Well, I did say yes," she admits eventually, once that lip is grudgingly released. "And I'm glad you weren't looking at me just because I looked so epically ridiculous that night."

Yeong-Su grins widely and says in a hushed tone, “We were supposed to look epically ridiculous, but even ridiculous you still looked like Supergirl.” Definitely a line and he knows it, but it has the added bonus of having some basis in fact. “I’m really glad you said yes. Think you’d say yes if I asked you out again?”

"Think you'd ask again if you didn't know ahead of time what my answer would be?" Iseul counters with a hint of resurgent playfulness, her gaze finally flitting up from her fruit to seek out his own. Of course, it's probably pretty obvious what both parties would answer, but the wordplay is still fun.

“How would I know? You’re the mind reader, not me! Or emotion reader. Empath?” It does take a moment to land on the right term. Either way he’s grinning because of the play in the moment. “If we go out on more than one date would we be officially dating?”

"I think, in the most technical of senses, one could see it that way," Iseul confirms, after a moment's consideration. "But since you haven't technically asked yet, and I haven't technically said yes, there's still time for you to back out..." Almost like she's daring him to. Or, perhaps, just taking into account men's stereotypical aversion to labels and commitment, and giving him an escape path that isn't strewn with hard feelings.

Or maybe he’s not going to fall back at all and instead goes with, “Will you go out with me again, Iseul?” Yeong-Su asks it with a note of seriousness so she knows he means it. No joke. “I don’t think I could get up from this bench without asking you.”

"I have this sneaking suspicion," Iseul begins, her eyes gaining a softness to them as she looks over his features before returning her focus fully to his eyes, "That it's something I'd regret for the rest of my life, if I said anything but 'yes.'" She pauses, her smile equal parts shy and sheepish as she dips her gaze down to her food again, then adds, "And just to get it out of the way now, the answer will be 'yes' the next time you ask, too. And the time after that."

Yeong-Su’s expression lights up, and if she was listening for emotions Iseul might gather just how genuinely surprised and thrilled her answer makes him. “I plan to keep asking. And probably will send you lots of texts too. You know, I swear I wasn’t looking for a Korean girlfriend, like not specifically. Mother will think I started dating you just to make her happy…”

Iseul opens her mouth as if to say something, then swiftly closes it again, giving her head a little shake and averting her gaze with a smile that's mostly shy, but perhaps a smidge rueful. Plucking up a halved strawberry between thumb and forefinger, she offers it out to him as she switches tracks and notes, "I wouldn't be opposed to your letting her think that, if the result is that she is happy. She'll probably be even more so if she finds out you found yourself an eventual doctor," she teases.

As if by reflex he takes the offered strawberry and says, “She’ll love that. I thought you were already more than enough, but a doctor? You’re going to make me look like the best son ever. Is there anything about you that isn’t perfect?” That he asks with a sly look as he pops the strawberry in his mouth.

"Mm." Good question. Iseul thinks on that for a few seconds, then her eyes glimmer with laughing chagrin as she half-jokes, "My apparent inability to control my own body temperature when you're around?" The watermelon sphere she'd been playing with earlier is plucked and popped into her mouth. Once swallowed, she adds, "And I'm not the greatest cook. Yet. It's something I'm working on, especially since I miss the food from back home, and nobody here seems to do it right."

Yeong-Su rolls his eyes a little and says, “You and me both, so don’t worry. I’m kind of bad in the kitchen. Most of my money seems to go to just food because I’m bad and keep ordering out.” He reaches a good under the table to nudge hers and adds, “I get kind of hot around you too. Maybe we’re sick.”

"Ohh, you could be right," Iseul replies, widening her eyes oh so seriously. "Maybe we've both been eating too much American food, and we need a good, traditional Korean meal to reset things and get us healthy again." She grins. "Want to take a chance on my cooking sometime? If absolutely nothing else, I make a pretty good haemul-pajeon, I've got some kimchi fermenting."

Yeong-Su looks interested, to say the least. “I would love to take a chance on you.” he says, leaving the double meaning out there for her to do with as she pleases. He does eat some, but it’s very much secondary to paying attention to her. “So, next time at your place? It’s already getting a little dark and I might have to protect you from robbers and other uhm…I was going to joke about goblins but this place may actually have those so I don’t want to say that too loud.”

"I'm not too worried about being robbed here, at least, but I'll gladly let you play hero if any spooks or creepy critters show up," Iseul laughingly replies. Crescent Island is restricted to employees and their families, after all, so one would hope that the crime rate is pretty low. "And sure. Next time, my place. I'll call my mom and ask her for her very best 'need to impress a good Korean boy' recipe -- I'm sure she'll jump at the opportunity to share something tasty." She winks, playful again.

Suddenly he looks at her with mock suspicion. “Wait…who’s this Good Korean Boy? What am I up against here?” He’s definitely Korean and unquestionably a boy so likely he’s bringing the Good into question. “Seriously though how are you not scooped up with like a boyfriend and two backups in line? Not that I’m complaining. I’ll definitely take the good luck.”

"How I present you to my mother doesn't necessarily have to reflect reality," Iseul reminds him, holding back a laugh. "It's the best way to get a really good recipe from her." As to the rest, well. A tiny dose of self-consciousness seeps in as she lowers her gaze and brushes off the tops of her denim-clad thighs. A few stray grains of invisible sand, perhaps. "And... up till late last year, I was pretty exclusively focused on my master's, then supervised clinical hours, then getting my license. I was actually here on a celebratory vacation after finishing that last part, when magic happened and I decided to move here." So, no time for a boyfriend before, it seems.

“Magic definitely happened.” agrees Yeong-Su, who clearly is not talking about flashy powers. He’s just watching this amazing girl and letting himself slide completely into her lap, emotionally speaking.

As if stricken with a sudden thought he gets up and steps around to her side of the table, looking at the horizon which yet glows with the now sunken sun’s fading light. The waters of the lake lap at the shore and frogs begin to sing as the cool evening sets in.

He offers a hand to her in invitation to have her stand next to him.

He's suddenly on the move, and to her credit, she only starts slightly in response. Barely even a jump. Soft brown eyes are brimming with mingled concern and curiosity when he draws close, though, and she looks up at him with a mild arch to her brow. The outstretched hand isn't shied from, stance shifting in her seat to allow her to face him as she slips her hand into his grasp and rises smoothly. "Yes?" is asked, quietly.

With her hand in his, he grins and takes the opportunity to turn that contact into a full fledged Holding Hands. Then he whispers so as to encourage silence without actually shushing her, “It’s just a really nice view. I wanted to spend it with you.”

And as if to explain he just looks out over the water and squeezes her hand in his, pulling her close gently in a way not entirely on purpose.

Then, “Thanks for being here with me.”

Tough, perhaps, to determine how much of the rose hue that rides her cheekbones is brought about by the sunset's glow, and how much can be blamed on him. Sand isn't the most stable surface to stand on, and when he tightens his hold on her hand, she winds up tipping ever so slightly, bringing her body into contact with his. The shiver that pours through her is a mighty enough to be felt, but she doesn't pull away. Instead, Iseul fixes her gaze on the sinking sun, draws in a quiet breath, and allows herself to smile. "There's no place else I can even fathom wanting to be, right now," she murmurs in response.