Nicholas was, by all means, an unstriking man. He was a twenty-six year old living in a small brick apartment in Barrytown Queens, with a girlfriend named Emma who studied Literature at the local college. On the weekdays she would go and work at an editor firm which she interned for, then head back and into the late hours work on her classes. Nicholas, on the other hand, was a romantic without any of the training. He worked as a keeper at the bookstore on Rohan Ave, Farmer’s, and in his free time did copywriting work. Together the couple made just enough to keep the apartment.

For a brickstone, their apartment was tight. And messy. The couple didn’t really have enough time to clean up the place, nor did they really care all that much about the mess anyway. To them, it didn’t really matter — their place was too small to become a hangout spot, and they instead used it more as a base of operations than a home, a place to occasionally retreat to as a rendezvous point only to go off somewhere else, whether it be work, or school, or a bar downtown. 

One day, while working at Farmer’s, Nicholas felt a light tap on his shoulder. It was an old friend. She was Asian in complexion — a mix of Japanese and Vietnamese, though Nicholas himself had never bothered to ask. She was wearing a dark red-mahogany coat with a matching beret, a pair of sharply brown leather gloves, and black leggings. Her hair was dyed blonde, though it had now faded into an almost silvery-white. 

“Hey, Nicholas. Can’t say I expected to see you here.”

Seeing her again made him stumble in his words. “Y-Yurie?”

The girl smiled. “What are you doing here in Queens?”

Nicholas put back the book he was examining. “I could say the same for you.”

Yurie drew a small sliver of bangs back behind her ear. Nicholas watched closely. “Oh, I’m just here on a trip. I’m visiting a few friends who live nearby. You remember Courtney and Jewel?”

Nicholas thought for a moment. “From Euclid? I don’t think so.”

“I figured. They were in my poli-sci classes, so you wouldn’t have gotten into direct contact with them. Anyway, back to my question.”

The boy let out his best attempt at a charming smile. Yurie seemed to enjoy it. It was a first, as far as he knew.

“Well, to be honest, I came up here because the writing gigs were better.”

“Oh? You still write, then?”

“Kind of. I do freelance writing for businesses. I don’t write fiction anymore.”

Yurie leaned against the bookshelf opposite of him. She twiddled her thumbs at her stomach. “Well, I’ll be in town for the rest of the week. We should meet up sometime. My number… well, my number has stayed the same. You still have it?”

Nicholas took his phone out from his jean pocket. “I should.” He turned on the phone and scrolled all the way through his contacts until he saw a familiar sight — a contact entitled Yuyu!, with a younger, laughing portrait of the girl in front of him. A relic of the past.

The boy repeated the phone number listed under the contact aloud. Yurie nodded.

“Text me later tonight. We’ll set up something. Wednesday, maybe?”

Nicholas considered it. “I can do before 9 or after 3.”

“So can I. See you, Nick.”

“…See you, Yurie.”

For a while, the two wouldn’t have dreamed of finding themselves apart in the first place. The relationship between Nicholas Wood and Yurie Hyubasa went all the way back to their middle school, almost 13 years prior. Their first year they had the same gym class together. The Yurie then was a far cry from the rigid and formal one of the present. She was a tomboy — one who was particularly good at sports, and not afraid to show it. That drove little Nick crazy, as it did all the boys his age. Still, he dared not speak to her until a year later.

It was then that he found out Yurie was an honors student like him, and they shared many more classes as part of their curriculum. This led to a few forced contacts due to group projects, where Yurie mostly treated the boy as either a fly on the wall or with mild annoyance. It wasn’t until a field trip to the science center where the two were briefly stranded after the school bus drove back without them, that they began to form a bond.

Early high school was when the relationship peaked. While Nicholas mostly retreated into his introversion, he used Yurie as an anchor, and Yurie accepted him. They began to talk so often that both teachers and classmates alike made jokes about the two getting married not too long after they graduated. And while Nicholas threw off the jokes much like how Yurie did, deep inside he secretly hoped that it would all come true.

But it didn’t. In sophomore year Yurie surprised everyone – including Nicholas – by dating some weed-smoking skater in their AP World History class. In reality, Yurie never had any intention of dating Nicholas – she was serious when she told classmates that the two of them “just weren’t compatible”. But the truth didn’t hit Nicholas until that moment.

The relationship with the skater didn’t last long, but from that point onwards Yurie found herself on the dating market, and Nicholas was left behind. At least, he felt left behind. Yurie still tried to talk with him every day at lunch, but he became more and more distant, more and more trapped in his feelings. Eventually when the two graduated, they did go to the same university – Euclid College – but chose completely different majors, which at such a big school cemented their isolation from one another.

And now this. 

Queens was a long way from Euclid, and Nicholas couldn’t help but believe that his meeting with Yurie was more than chance. That night, when he returned home from work, he saw Emma reading a book on their second-hand red sofa.

“You won’t believe who I met today,” Nicholas began, his words a bit stilted because he himself didn’t know how to start the conversation.

Emma looked up from her book. “Hmm?”

Nicholas dropped his keys and wallet on the kitchen counter. “Yurie. You remember I told you about Yurie?”

“Yeah. Your friend in high school?”

Nicholas walked over and sat at an armchair adjacent to the girl. “She came by the bookstore today. Said she’s in town for a few days. I was debating whether or not I should talk to her.”

Emma nodded. “I think it’s a good idea. You can catch up, see what she’s been up to.”

Nicholas nodded back, but inside he was still reluctant. He only ever told Emma that Yurie was a friend, never what he secretly thought of her. Still, he said no more. That night he texted Yurie and asked if she wanted to get coffee the next morning. Almost instantly she responded yes.

…

Nicholas picked a cafe he knew well – one he’d always stop by in the morning to get a bagel and latte before he went to work. He figured having the home-field advantage would allow him to navigate the conversation better.

Yurie came in only a few minutes after Nicholas had arrived. She wore the same red overcoat and brown gloves, but her hair was slightly different – it was pushed over to her left shoulder, the way she used to do it back in high school.

The two got their coffee, and sat down at a rather exclusive table on the far end of the shop. “So,” Nicholas began. “I see you changed your hair.”

Yurie smiled. She took off her gloves and, with her right hand, massaged the strands of hair on the other side of her head. “I actually only dyed it recently. It’s a really nice color, though the dyeing process makes your hair really brittle.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Price to pay for beauty, right?”

Yurie let out a soft giggle at his answer. When she did so, she brought up her ungloved hand to her mouth, where Nicholas noticed something he hadn’t seen before – a silver ring on her wedding finger.

“You married?” Nicholas continued.

Yurie looked down at the hand, and nodded. “About a year now.”

Nicholas’ heart sank at the news. He didn’t know why – he had been with Emma since he moved to Queens, and Yurie had been out of his life for almost twice that amount of time. Maybe it was just the idea of a door closing that he thought was still open. He quickly shrugged it off.

“So, besides dyeing your hair and marriage, what have you been up to?”

Yurie gave that playful giggle again. “Well, let’s see… I’m working as a paralegal in Boston. I’m planning on going to law school pretty soon.”

Nicholas nodded, leaning in with his cup of coffee. “Where you plan on going to? Harvard, right?”

Yurie smiled, shaking her head. “No, no. I’m not that good. I was thinking Boston College, but… I might move down here, too. Depends on who I get accepted by.”

“Well, if you come to New York, prepare to room with somebody. I don’t think even a lawyer salary is gonna give you enough to get an apartment by yourself.”

“Well… I’ll probably be living with my husband. That should be enough.”

“Ah, right.” Nicholas scratched his head. His heart sunk once more. He had already forgotten.

The two took turns sipping their cups of coffee, when Yurie came back into the conversation with a question of her own.

“So you said you’re still writing?”

Nicholas nodded, as he was still in the midst of drinking from his cup.

“But you’re not doing fiction. Why not?”

The young man put his cup off to the side. “Doesn’t make any money.”

“I thought there was more to writing than ‘making money’?”

Nicholas paused. He looked out the window, watching some college kids pass by, while he weighed what to say.

“I’ve changed my philosophy on it. Maybe I’d start writing it again if I… got rich or something, I dunno. But right now I have enough trouble getting money for rent. It’s like… I need a bit of padding if I’m going to think about more artistic stuff, y’know?”

Yurie nodded. “I understand the struggle. It’s a wise choice… I always liked that about you.”

Nicholas felt himself blushing. Quickly he lowered his head so that the light from the cafe’s ceiling would hide any of the redness in his cheeks.

“Are you living with someone? I imagine you have your own roommate, right?”

Nicholas nodded. “I have a girlfriend. Emma.”

He looked back up. Yurie, surprisingly, looked a little saddened by this. But perhaps it was just his imagination.

“And what does she do?”

“She’s an editor. Not like what I do with marketing copy… hers is more complicated. She edits textbooks, smart people stuff like that. Has to make sure that the example problems are correct, that sort of stuff.”

Yurie gave a polite smile. “Sounds like she’s really intelligent.”

Nicholas smiled back. “Yeah, she is.”

The two kept talking for a while longer, mostly miscellaneous topics about people they both knew or places to visit in New York. The conversation lasted much longer than either anticipated, and Nicholas had to cut it abruptly once he noticed he was almost ten minutes late to work.

“No, no, it’s not a problem!” Yurie exclaimed once Nicholas revealed how late he was. “Please, don’t let me be the reason you get fired.”

Nicholas chuckled as he picked up his backpack. “I don’t think Mrs. Chang will mind too much. We don’t get too many people trying to buy books at 9am, you know?”

“Right, right. Hey-” Yurie stopped him right as he was about to turn to the exit. “Sorry, but – want to go for drinks tomorrow?”

“Huh?” Nicholas wasn’t upset by the notion, but it certainly caught him off guard.

“I just… Courtney and Jewel have work in the evening tomorrow, so I’m all on my own. I was going to just go sightseeing, but… figure it might be more fun with someone else.”

Nicholas smirked. He waved his hand. “Sure. Text me about it later.”

Yurie waved back, and Nicholas left the cafe to start his walk to Farmer’s. As he walked he realized that there was a butterfly-feeling in his stomach which he had not felt for years. 

…

When Nicholas got back home later that evening, Emma was making dinner. She didn’t spare any time in getting to the point.

“So, how’d it go?”

Nicholas let out an exhausted sigh, dropping his backpack on the couch. “It went well. I think you were right – it was nice, you know, to see her again. Get to know how things have changed.”

Emma nodded her head, her eyes focused on her pot. “That’s good.”

Nicholas considered telling Emma more about that cafe conversation. He considered telling her about how he felt so relieved, vindicated even, to see Yurie smile and nod and listen to every word he said for what felt like the first time ever. He even considered telling her that the two had set up one more date on Friday evening. 

But he didn’t.

Instead, he walked up to Emma and asked what she was making. He never brought up Yurie again. On the surface, he had no idea why.

As the two fell asleep in their bedroom that night, all Nicholas could think about was Yurie.

…

When the next morning hit, Nicholas told Emma that he’d be away helping a friend move that evening, and it might take the whole night. He never specified who the friend was, or why they weren’t moving in during the day, but Emma didn’t ask. She may have had her suspicions, but she didn’t reveal them if she did. Instead she just told him it’d be fine, that she had to write an essay for her class and ‘wouldn’t be too fun to be around anyway’, in her own words. Nicholas felt bad for her – he did like Emma, after all. But right now all his fascinations were fixed upon Yurie.

He found Yurie outside a steak restaurant in the financial district. It was where they intended to meet. Both of them had rich tastes and bad spending habits, so they didn’t mind stopping for dinner at a place they most certainly couldn’t afford.

“So, what have you been writing?” Yurie asked as soon as they got seated. 

“I do freelance. Did I not mention that?”

“No, no, I mean… what do you write? You told me you do marketing for businesses, right?”

“Yeah, I mean…” Nicholas put a straw in his glass of water. “I do copywriting. So, stuff on their website, their social media, things like that. Try to get people to become customers.”

Yurie took a sip of her water. “You enjoy it?”

Nicholas shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Some time passed. They gave their order to the waitress. Yurie turned back to him.

“I really think you should get back into fiction,” she said, seemingly in contradiction with what she told him the morning before. “I liked reading your stuff… I miss it.”

“I thought you liked me for my rationality,” Nicholas smirked.

Yurie playfully rolled her eyes. “I mean, I do. But I thought about it more, and… maybe there’s still room to do both. You remember Greylock Chronicles?”

Nicholas blew air out of his mouth, leaning back in his seat. “God, don’t remind me.”

“I was obsessed with reading that over the summer. I never told you because I thought it was embarrassing, but… every week you posted a new chapter, I would read it that afternoon. I was hooked.”

Nicholas shook his head, taking another sip from his glass. “It was just some schlocky fantasy book. Anyone could’ve made it.”

“No. Only you could’ve made it.”

Nicholas felt a flutter in his chest. A flutter he hadn’t felt since he was in high school. When he looked up, Yurie was smiling at him. He was about to smile back, when the waiter came by with some appetizers.

…

After dinner, Yurie walked forward to the sidewalk, stretching her legs. “We should get some drinks. You want drinks?” she asked excitedly.

Nicholas chuckled. “You already had almost a full beer.”

She shook her head exaggeratedly. “You helped drink most of it. You should be more drunk than I am.”

The young man looked down at himself, shrugging. “I don’t feel a thing.”

“Well then, we gotta change that!” Yurie quickly grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him down the streets of Manhattan. Feeling her bare hands on his body gave him that flutter again, though she must have quickly realized what she was doing as she let go not long after. “You know any good bars we can try around here?”

Nicholas nodded. “St. Gregors. It’s not too far away, we just gotta pass by Wall Street.”

“Ooh, I’ve always wanted to check out Wall Street. Doesn’t it have a bunch of rich people hanging around?”

Nicholas smirked, his eyes looking downwards as they two walked together through the cold air. “Try homeless drug addicts.”

Yurie took her gloves out of the pocket of her coat. “When I was a kid, I had this genius idea of how to get free money. I’d go hang out around the banks and offices and everything, and just look around the sidewalk. I figured since these people were so rich, instead of dropping quarters or dimes they’d drop one hundred dollar bills. Wall Street’s gotta be the mecca of that.”

“Maybe the homeless had the same idea.”

The two passed by Wall Street, just as planned. However, when they got there they noticed a performance was happening – three African men playing a presumably traditional African song, though neither of the two recognized the music nor thought to look around for any details. Still, they both joined the small crowd and stood there enthralled for a while, staying quiet and just appreciating the sound.

After a while Yurie was the one who broke off as Nicholas followed closely behind to guide her towards St. Gregors. The two found seats at the end of the counter where the bartender, an older Irish woman, mistakenly confused the two for being a couple. Nicholas felt embarrassed by this, moreso because he was worried Yurie would be upset, but Yurie simply laughed it off and ordered two drinks.

It was at St. Gregors where Nicholas really started to feel it. His vision began to get dizzy as he listened to Yurie tell stupid jokes and anecdotes revolving around her two friends and their trip. All the while Yurie, who most certainly felt it, kept wobbling back and forth and, quite often, pushed herself onto Nicholas, her hand grabbing his chest and her soft silver hair falling down onto him. It was this interaction, combined with the alcohol, that drove Nicholas past the point of no return.

It was late – around 1am – when they finally left the bar. Even then, the streets of Manhattan were still lively.

“Shit… I have no idea how I’m gonna get back like this,” Yurie sloshed, clearly in an effort to get Nicholas to respond.

“I can take you back,” the drunk Nicholas responded almost instantly. “Where’s your hotel?”

“It’s by, uh… it’s by, the Statue of Liberty… no! The, uh, what’s the other one?”

“The… Empire State Building?”

“Yeah, yeah! That one. It’s the Ambrosia. Can we get there from here?”

“It’ll be a bit of a walk, but…” Nicholas got out his phone, his breath fogged up in the cold night. “Yeah, I see it. You wanna walk it, or take a taxi?”

“I’m fine with walking. I spent all my Uber money at the bar. Ha!” Yurie let out a short laugh as she almost tripped out of the sidewalk. Nicholas grabbed her just in time and pulled her forward, causing her to lean into him. He could smell a mix of her perfume as well as the alcohol on her breath.

“Can you… can you hold me?” She asked in an almost whisper. “Hold me still, I mean. So I can lean on you, while we walk.”

“Yeah, of course,” Nicholas whispered back.

The walk to the hotel was quiet. It wasn’t because either one of them were tired – they were both used to late nights like these – but more so because each of them was busy thinking of something else entirely.

When the two got to the hotel, they both greeted the late-night security guard and walked straight to the elevator. As the elevator motioned upwards, Yurie’s eyes gazed up towards Nicholas. Nicholas caught her look, and the two looked at each other, before hearing the buzzer on the elevator signal their location. From there it was just a few more steps until Yurie reached her room, pressing the card upon the door to unlock it.

In one fell swoop Yurie grabbed Nicholas by the collar of his coat and pulled him inside, closing the door behind them. She pushed herself up against his body and kissed him on the lips. Nicholas didn’t object, first grabbing her by the back of the hair then turning her around to push her against the door instead. His hand moved down to her neck, squeezing it gently at first, but Yurie took his hand and pushed it inwards, signalling him to squeeze harder. Eventually Nicholas moved away from her lips and forced open her coat, almost breaking off the buttons from their seams. Yurie looked down, then looked back at him. She jumped into his arms, where Nicholas picked her up and threw her onto the hotel bed.

…

When Nicholas woke up the next morning, he was naked under the cover of cheap linen hotel sheets. Yurie was partially on top of him, also naked, but still sound asleep. Gently he moved his arm up so that he could push the silver locks of hair out of Yurie’s eyes. Her makeup was gone now, but she still looked as beautiful as she did before.

And yet, something felt different.

The days before this were the best moments of Nicholas’ life. He got back with his high school love, proved to her he was now successful and worth her time, then brought her on a romantic night which ended in the best sex he ever had. But now it was the morning after, and rather than keeping that feeling of accomplishment he just felt empty. He saw this chapter of his life as closed, rather than it being something brand new. Most of all, he missed Emma.

Carefully he removed Yurie’s arm from wrapping over his body. He quietly got up, looking around to find his clothes strewn about the floor of the hotel room. One by one he picked them up, then moved into the bathroom. 

As Nicholas put his clothes back on, he occasionally looked at himself in the mirror. At first it was an accident, but once his coat was back on he looked into the mirror and stared at his eyes. He thought he might look different, but the truth was that he was the same. He looked back, briefly, to all those moments where he’d look at himself in the mirror when he was in high school. He wondered if that was any different either.

Nicholas slowly closed the bathroom door, only to jump with surprise when he heard a voice behind him.  

“I gotta head for the airport at 10. Could you come with me?”

Yurie was leaning up in bed. She looked at Nicholas, the glow of the phone in her hand shining off her face in the dim lighting.

“To the train, I mean,” she clarified. “Since you know how to get there better than I do.”

“Ah…” Nicholas was still somewhat shaken from her already being awake. “Sure. We better go soon, though.”

Yurie agreed. Nicholas helped her by putting her clothes back in the suitcase, while she got ready in the bathroom. It didn’t take long for Nicholas to realize Yurie herself seemed a bit off. She was almost melancholic, in a way she had not seemed to him ever before. He wondered if she was feeling the same way he was. 

When Yurie was finally ready, Nicholas took her suitcase and escorted her down to the front desk. While waiting Nicholas had an inner panic spur within him when he realized now was around the same time Emma would be headed towards the subway for her classes. And so he convinced Yurie to take a station a bit out of the way – when Yurie asked why, he simply said there would be less foot traffic.

As the two walked down the busy streets of Manhattan, they scarcely said a word to one another. However, Nicholas could feel Yurie as she continuously leaned in his direction, the wintry cold making her breath flow towards Nicholas’ chest.

“I’ve got such a bad headache from last night,” Yurie eventually said, giving an excuse for her silence. “Probably should’ve stopped drinking after dinner.”

“I did warn you.”

“Yeah, you did.” There was a little smile which grew on Yurie’s face. Softly she grabbed Nicholas’ arm and rubbed her head against it. It made walking a bit awkward, and made Nicholas nervous in the case that he might see someone he knew, so he did his best to politely shake her off. It worked, but the smile faded from Yurie’s face.

The two entered the subway station, one of the few where there were no turnstiles and so Nicholas could walk Yurie straight to where the train was set to arrive. There was a crowd, but due to it being in the middle of the day – and the awkward placement of the station Nicholas had chosen – there were only about a dozen people waiting.

Despite the availability of open seats, Nicholas decided to keep standing. Yurie kept standing, too. There was, at this point, still some time until the train was supposed to arrive. The young man thought about taking out his phone, but right as he reached towards his pocket Yurie did something odd.

In one swift and unbroken movement, she reached towards Nicholas and wrapped her arms around him. While her head sunk into his chest, she whispered something – but it was too faint for Nicholas to hear.

“Huh?” Nicholas asked aloud.

Yurie moved her head slightly, looking up at the boy with what looked like pleading eyes.

“Never let me go.”

Nicholas was taken aback. Yurie simply went back to facing his chest, her hold over him growing tighter. Not sure what else to do he raised his arms and began gently stroking the back of her hair, using his other hand to rub her back. They stayed intertwined together until the train finally came into the station.

Slowly, perhaps hesitantly, Yurie released her grasp over the boy. She rolled her suitcase onto the train, stopping one last time to look back at Nicholas as the door closed. Nicholas waved her goodbye. She just kept looking at him.

As Nicholas walked out of the station, a realization hit him. He loved Emma. He really loved Emma. And as he went to take the train back to Barrytown, he wondered about asking her to dinner later that night.