He hadn’t drawn.
He hadn’t even braided his hair properly.
Hyacinth noticed.
She swept in like she always did—dramatic silk robe over a tank top and sweats, false lashes already half-applied, hair wrapped in a leopard-print scarf that defied gravity.
One look at him and she tossed her handbag on the counter.
“Oh no,” she said flatly. “Who died?”
“No one,” Haneul mumbled, staring into his coffee like it might offer reincarnation. “Just… thinking.”
“Dangerous habit,” she said, plucking a cherry from the garnish tray and popping it into her mouth. “Want a distraction? I could tell you the legend of how I once seduced an idol trainee with a lisp and an Oedipus complex.”
He didn’t smile. Not even a twitch.
That was new.
That was alarming.
Hyacinth leaned in, suddenly quieter.
“Alright, kit. Spill.”
Haneul’s shoulders were hunched. His jaw tight.
And then—without looking at her—he said:
“Do you believe in memory… that isn’t memory?”
A pause.
Hyacinth blinked once. Then set the cherry stem down with eerie precision.
“Elaborate, darling. Before I think you’ve joined a cult.”
“It’s like… things I feel like I’ve known forever. But no one told me. And I didn’t read them anywhere. It’s like they were always in my bones. Like déjà vu—but louder. Longer. Like—” He stopped.
She waited.
“—Like seeing in color after living in monochrome. Like there was something I couldn’t name pulling at me, and now I almost see it. Like everything is about to explode and I’m the one holding the match.”
Hyacinth said nothing for a while.
Then, softly: “Some people aren’t new.”
Haneul looked up.
She twirled a stir stick between her fingers, gaze unfocused. “They don’t come into this world blank. They come… bruised. Shadowed. Like a house that’s been knocked down and rebuilt, but the foundation still remembers fire.”
Fire. Haneul’s fingers curled slightly around the mug when he heard that word.
“And sometimes,” she said, “the loves that burned us don’t die. They just… come back wearing different faces.”
“Reincarnation?”
“Call it that, if it helps. I call it unfinished business. Karma’s drama sequel.”
