Seeking a Wilted Love
Why had she stopped here and dredged up things best left buried?
Written by: Celeste Kallio (@CelesteKallio) using SudoWrite
Illustrations by: Andrey Kurenkov (@andrey_kurenkov) using DALLE-2 and MidJourney
Narration by: Andrey Kurenkov (@andrey_kurenkov) using BeyondWords
Text Formatting: Human-written text is italic, AI-generated text is normal
Laurel was on the move again, a blur of motion from the moment the plane touched down at Incheon airport. After passing through immigration, she got into a car and everything within her stilled as she locked eyes with the driver in the rearview mirror.
"Kai? Is that you?"
The driver shook his head. "No English, ma'am."
No, it couldn't be Kai. The last she'd heard of him, he was in rehab, never having left the small town where they'd grown up. His dad had died, and Kai had inherited the family business, a flower shop, though he dreamed of something bigger. He'd turned to opiates, become a shell of his former self, and he was the last person she expected to see in the city.
She thought about him as she gazed out at Seoul's glittering skyline. Before she left for LA, before he'd lost his spark, Kai had been there for her when she'd needed a friend. How had that turned into a kiss? One kiss, and she was never quite over him. She should have turned away at that moment, but the damage was done.
In the decade since, she'd focused on her career and risen steadily through the corporate ranks. But a small part of her couldn't forget him, or her home country, or the smell of the flowers he arranged.
Maybe that was why, when she saw the familiar sign on the front of the flower shop, she demanded the driver stop the car and went inside.
A bell jingled overhead as she passed through the door. The shop was bright and cheery, with rows and rows of pots, plants, and flowers in every color and shape imaginable.
"Hello. Can I help you?" The man who greeted her wasn’t Kai.
Laurel nodded. "I'm looking for Kai. I thought maybe he worked here or something." She glanced around the room, looking for his spiky hair and adorable glasses.
The clerk gave her a friendly smile. "Maybe I can help you. What did you want?"
Startled, she took a step back. She hadn't known what she was looking for. Laurel cursed herself for her weakness, her inability to move past a hangup on her childhood crush when they both had changed so much.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be here. Please forget I was ever here."
She turned to walk away, but he stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. "It's okay. You look lost. What can I do to help?"
She took a deep breath, then another, unable to make her heart stop thumping. She wanted to tell him about what she was doing there and how much the country had changed, but the words stuck in her throat.
"I was hoping to talk to Kai. I heard he lived here." She started to feel lightheaded, but forced herself to look him in the eye.
"I'm a friend of Kai’s, or rather, I was. I have no idea where he is."
"Wait. You were friends with him? Were you both in rehab?"
He grimaced at the word. "Yeah."
“And you got clean?"
"Yes." He was smiling, but it was a sad smile, the kind you gave to a child who didn't understand. “Kai and I, we lost touch. When he last called me, he was in trouble, and it didn't sound like he was going to be able to stay clean for long. I tried to help him, but in the end, he has to want it.”
Laurel nodded. "He was always stubborn, even when we were kids." She glimpsed the clock on the wall and shook her head. She would be late for her first meeting, and couldn't believe she'd let jet lag and nostalgia take her on this detour to her past. "I'm sorry. I should go."
"He's changed since the last time you saw him. He's not the same person he was. He doesn't have to be."
It didn't sound like advice. It sounded like a warning.
"Thank you for your time. I'm sorry I took yours. I'm sure you have a lot to do here. I should get a coffee and get back to the office."
She held her breath as she pushed the door aside and walked out to the sidewalk, looking down the street for a taxi. Why had she stopped here and dredged up things best left buried? Laurel had never forgotten where she came from. Did she think she could find a little bit of it again?
Her thoughts swirled into a cloud of fog. He'd been the first man she'd ever kissed, and she'd done it without thinking about anything except that she wanted to feel something other than the pain that overwhelmed her when she woke up in the night, mourning her parents and the life she'd lost.
She put her sunglasses on to hide her eyes, too full of tears for the skyline-clogged streets of Seoul. Thinking about it, she was surprised she hadn't seen a single person on the streets apart from the man in the flower shop. She was on the outskirts of the city, and even the side streets were quiet. In LA it was hard to get away from people, but here she could hear the scurry of small animals in the tall grass.
She scurried down the streets herself then, just another small animal navigating the maze her species had built for itself. What experiment was she a part of, halfway across the world?
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