Chapter Text
a few months prior to the embarkation of Serendipity
The thing about travel agencies was that they never offered enough freedom.
“How can something be both so boring and so expensive at the same time?” Caroline whined on the other side of the line. Jeongguk could hear the incessant click of her mouse as she skipped through an endless number of offers for summer vacations. It was still March and she was already spiraling.
Jeongguk hummed to show he was listening. His own camera filled the empty studio with sound and light as he prepared for the photoshoot that was yet to come the next day. “What’s boring and expensive to you might be the perfect holiday for someone else.”
Lina grunted. The clicking sound became more frantic.
Skip, skip, skip.
It was well past midnight. The air conditioning in Jeongguk’s studio was overworking itself in order to stop the chill that ran down his back. Outside, the world laid still beneath the dark veil of the night sky. Summer could be nothing more than a reminiscence or, at most, a promise.
Jeongguk was listening to Caroline’s complaining on autopilot. His mind was focused on the decor he had carefully crafted a week ago. There was something wrong with the shadows it created. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly and it was getting the worst of him.
“Oh, dear lord,” Lina gasped. “This one’s called Sunburned and emotionally unavailable in Ibiza. I didn’t know you did marketing for travel agencies in your spare time, Jeongguk-ah. Furthermore,” she mocked, “it’s unethical to project your own reality onto other people’s dream holidays.”
“I don’t get sunburn,” Jeongguk replied absentmindedly.
Lina huffed out a laugh and carried on. “How about Venice?”
Jeongguk left his camera on one of the chairs and stretched his body. A yawn pushed its way out of his mouth. “In July? The only architecture you’d be able to see will be the shoulder blades of the tourists.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Can’t we go somewhere with less water?”
“No,” Lina retorted.
Jeongguk began switching off the lights in his studio. There was nothing more he could do until the actual photoshoot. His studio could no longer save him from the emptiness of his apartment.
“Then Jeju?”
“No,” Lina repeated as if this was her most favourite word in the entire world.
“Why?” Jeongguk groaned, fingers already buttoning his winter coat.
“We have to go far. Summer is the season when we get away.”
“Careful or you’ll sound like an unhappy person.”
He couldn’t see her but he was sure she was rolling her eyes.
“I’m not unhappy, per se. I just wish for more art. More beauty with all its rawness and thrill. An adventure. A ticket is like a key. All we need to do is buy the right one.”
Something stirred in Jeongguk’s stomach at Lina’s final words. Something was desperately trying to make itself known, to escape the shadows of the outskirts of Jeongguk’s mind.
“Okay, Lin,” he said. “Find the ticket. I’ll go with you.”
He eventually switched off the main lightning. He locked the door of his studio and disappeared under the soft glow cast from the tall streetlights. March had never been colder before.