Say Their Name
"I officially love your best friend, Natalie Miller. Tell me, is she single?" Jiwon was curling Natalie's hair while she sat in her chair, bored out of her mind.
"Your unbelievable, you know that, right?" Natalie laughs, "And she's not interested in you."
"Natty, you don't have to be such a party pooper, you know that?"
"Ji – you know we can spend the night, right? We don't have to do this and –" Natalie was arguing before she got a flick in her head from her friend.
"Natalie Miller, your best friend – which I love her – just gave you tickets to one of the biggest band acts in the world right now, and you're telling me you're not willing to go?" Ji-won explain.
That's right. Of all the things, Kwon Seoyeon decided to give her birthday tickets to see a pop band on stage, which Jiwon had implied, the biggest round right now, to a sold-out show in LA. Honestly, this is not how Natalie wanted to spend her birthday that day, and she was excited to spend the day in bed and watch Netflix.
But no, after asking Jiwon what band it was, Jiwon panicked and then ensured she had used the ticker well.
"Ji – you know I'm not interested in any of those boy groups and –"
"How about Harry Styles?" Jiwon looks at her friend, and Nami stops as she shrugs.
"Alright, I'm willing for Harry. He's handsome." Natalie agreed, and the two girls began to prepare for the night out. Since the concert would be tomorrow, Jiwon had made it her task for Nami to buy a cute outfit.
She quoted, 'Who knows. The boys might stare at you'. Staring at my ass, Natalie thought, she's not planning on wooing any boys. She didn't even know who they were or any of their music, and she was not bothering herself to do any research. What she knows tho, is that she's happily single and boys are a waste of time. Well, except for one.
After doing her hair, Jiwon drags Natalie to a late-night out mall to find some clothes to wear tomorrow at the concert since Jiwon stated that she didn't have any outfit to wear and that Natalie needed to step her A-game on her wardrobe for tomorrow. Both girls walked through the store until Seoyeon found the right store. Deciding that Jiwon would be raiding the store, Natalie had to excuse herself to go to the restroom while her friend shopped.
"If you bail on me, I will shave your eyebrows, Natty," Lee Jiwon threatened her friend. Natalie then shakes her head at her friend's antic and laughs.
"Is that how you treat the birthday girl?" Natalie laughed, and Jiwon stuck her tongue out.
"You owe me a nice dinner Jiwon Lee." nodding at Natalie's words, her friend slipped inside the store, making Natalie finally have time to find the nearest restroom. As she began walking, something caught her eye for a moment, and stopping in her tracks, she looked back.
Her eyes scanned the area before she landed to see a group of boys talking loudly. She then shrugs her way to the restroom after scanning the mall.
Being the clumsy Natalie, she somehow had dropped a paper bag. The large paper bag that had her outfits for tomorrow's concert – courtesy of Jiwon's birthday present – people were looking at her. The embarrassment caught on quickly as people were staring, crouching to take the paper bag back, when a hand beat her to it.
"Thank you so much, you didn't have to –" As she stood up, dusting herself, Natalie looked up to the person who had helped her, and her heart stopped.
In front of her was someone very familiar to her, waves of emotion started to crash back at her as the stranger looked at her. It felt like the world had stopped for a moment. For a moment there, Natalie had thought that she was delusional.
The familiar face she had dreaded to see, the familiar face she had tried so hard to forget, haunting her from high school to her college life that is until she decided she had enough. The wall brick Nami had built so hard over the years was suddenly crashed down by a pair of chocolate eyes.
But it couldn't be him.
She had left him behind, a pass she didn't want to remember. While here in L.A., she had specifically chosen the city because she knew it was a prominent place and many people to meet, but how did she stare at a pair of chocolate eyes that was the same as his?
He was different from him, but Nami's heart couldn't help to clench, knowing the tiny detail that he was ridiculously the same as him. To even answer Natalie's chaotic mind, the person smiled gently towards her.
But before the stranger could utter a word, someone beat him to it. The voice called out a single name. The same name that had haunted her all this time, somehow confirming her suspicion.
"Jonathan! What's taking you so long!" that name was enough as a red light for Natalie as she grabbed the paper bag from his hands, muttering a 'thank you' as she dashed to the nearest store. He was trying to reach for her, but his friend beat him. As she glanced, another boy tackled the man.
The clerk greeted her, nodded, and then walked to the back aisle as she pretended to scan the product.
No, it was not him, right? It couldn't be.
Nami's thought was running wild. They had met here out of all the country, state, and malls.
The world has a funny and cruel way of making people meet, right? She sighed as she looked at the product she was scanning. It was a wallet.
She scans the place and realizes she has just entered a Gucci store. She then looked around when suddenly the clerk came to her.
"Miss, are you planning on buying this?" She looks at the clerk waiting for her answers, and without thinking, she nods. After checking out the store, she looks at the bag in confusion.
"What will I do with a men's wallet now?" she sighs. What was she thinking? Meeting a double ganger of him was messing with her brain?
It couldn't be right. Was that Johnny? The Jonathan Hills she had loved?