First Impressions
Volume I of Our Story
From 8000 Kilometers
to 8000 Layers of 인연
Happy birthday, my dearest Mirka.
StartChapter I
A Chance Acquaintance
It’s an 인연 if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush. Because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives.
Nora, Past Lives (2023)
I came from Lucerne. You came from Prague. Neither of us belonged to Seoul, and yet that’s where we met, over 8000 kilometers from anything either of us called home.
So many things had to happen for us to meet, and yet they did. I had to befriend Zeliha three months earlier in a place far from my home, and she had to recommend that guesthouse to me. I had to decide to work remotely in the first place and return to Seoul. You had to decide to do an internship in Seoul after doing your exchange there the previous semester, and on top of that, you had to choose that very same guesthouse.
None of those decisions had anything to do with each other. At the time, they were just ordinary choices made by two people living their separate lives. But put them all together, and they led us to the same room, in the same place, at exactly the right time.
Call it coincidence if you want, but it might just as well be 인연.
In Past Lives Nora explains that if two strangers even brush sleeves on a street, it means something happened between them in a life before this one. I’m not sure that I believe it’s true. But it’s a romantic way to explain why two people with no reason to meet find themselves in the same room anyway.
Whatever it was, it introduced us as friends, and even for a good while after, I didn’t think it would ever be anything more.
Chapter II
Matcha Is Greener with You
The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life.
Olivia Dean, “So Easy (To Fall in Love)”
The first time it was just the two of us, we walked into a very intimate Blue Bottle cafe for matcha lattes. There was no one else there besides the two overeager baristas.
You knew exactly where you wanted to go, the way you always seem to. In the coming weeks, you proved this over and over again, confidently leading the way like you had lived there for years rather than months.
That afternoon, we sat across from each other, sipping our drinks and talking about everything and nothing. Funnily enough, we had our first photo taken in that cafe. Ever since that afternoon, it has always felt so easy to talk to you. It was an effortless new friendship, nothing more complicated than that.
Olivia Dean sings about “the perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life,” and I think that afternoon was pure Saturday night. We had no plan, no stakes, just tea and easy conversation. I had no idea I would one day hope for the other half of that line too.
Chapter III
Past Lives and Present Company
If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8000 layers of 인연, over 8000 lifetimes.
Nora, Past Lives (2023)
Admit Two
One Night Only
Past Lives
Room 203
No. 08000 · Seat: Beside You
We started spending more and more time together. It was quality time I always cherished. Some afternoons meant walks through the streets of Seoul, and some evenings meant films on your bed, your attention split between the film and your work, whereas my attention started to drift towards you more and more.
Afterwards came the long talks about the films and about everything else. How fitting that our first film was Past Lives, the very film that explained the idea that two people cross paths only after 8000 layers of coincidence.
I loved the idea of 인연: the idea that if two people end up together, it’s because there were 8000 layers of 인연 behind it, accumulated over 8000 lifetimes.
I enjoyed these nights more than I let on, but they were simply what close friends did: staying up too late, talking until neither of us could stay awake anymore.
Chapter IV
The Long Way Home
You’ve been hosting parties in my mind.
Laufey, “Lover Girl”
Then Seoul ended, the way everything does. I still cherish the last photo we took together before I flew back home, and for the first time we had over 8000 kilometers and 7 hours of time difference between us.
You stayed in Seoul for a few more weeks after I left, so for a while there was a long distance between us. When you finally got back to Prague, the distance on a map shrank to something almost reasonable, but by then it didn’t matter. The distance had never been the hard part.
I won’t pretend I was certain of anything, least of all what to call what I felt. “Missing a close friend” was the phrase I reached for first, except it didn’t feel right.
Being away from you opened my eyes. It’s easy to feel something in a place that is so unfamiliar. It’s another thing entirely to feel it in my ordinary life, and realise that the feeling came home with me. That’s when I understood that I wasn’t simply missing a close friend. I was missing you.
Laufey sang it best: “You’ve been hosting parties in my mind.” I know exactly what she means, because you’ve been doing the same to me. I kept playing it safe, telling myself it was nothing more than missing a friend, but the thoughts only got louder, until at some point, they got so loud that I just had to believe it was more.
And if Seoul taught me anything, it’s that 인연 cares very little for geography. Whatever brought us together in the first place wouldn’t stop just because we’d gone home. And perhaps it was the distance that showed me how much I wanted to be close to you.
Chapter V
The Sound of You
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
You wear your heart on your sleeve, and somehow that makes it easier for me to do the same. I love talking to you about the mundane things as much as the real and deep ones. Never have I felt so comfortable with someone else, so safe just being myself.
Even when I already knew what I felt, I didn’t say it out loud. It showed in smaller ways: a sentence I started and let trail off, a joke that was really a confession wearing a disguise, hanging up the phone with something unsaid still sitting in my chest. I usually don’t like talking on the phone, but with you I kept calling, even when I had nothing to say.
When asked to name the exact hour she fell in love with Darcy, Elizabeth can’t. “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” Maybe that’s the best answer I can give myself too. There wasn’t a single moment when I fell in love with you. Somewhere between all the moments we’ve spent together, I simply found myself there.
Chapter VI
Zero Kilometers
The best thing to hold on to in life is each other.
Audrey Hepburn
Even though Prague was never a city I was particularly interested in, I just needed to see you. Walking through it with you for the first time made it one of the most meaningful places I’ve ever been.
You being there for my birthday was the best gift I could have ever asked for. Birthdays are never something I look forward to, but being with you made it one of the best days of my life.
I knew exactly what I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t know when to tell you what I felt. Somewhere between all those days of being with you, I didn’t want to waste any more time and stopped waiting for a better moment.
It was a hot day, and the inside of the photobooth was even hotter. It was so small we couldn’t even sit next to each other. Somewhere between one flash and the next, I just had to finally ask you out. I didn’t even use the words I planned to say, because I knew you would find them too dramatic. I said what I felt, and hoped you’d say it back.
Audrey Hepburn once said the best thing to hold on to in life is each other. In Prague, spending time with you, holding on to you turned out to be the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
Chapter VII
A Declaration, In Ink
You asked how I could love you. I just do. It’s the easiest thing.
John, Materialists (2025)
There’s a moment in Materialists where John tries to explain to Lucy why he loves her, and he can’t come up with anything grander than the truth: it’s just easy. That’s exactly how it feels with you too.
You already know some of this, but I wanted these words to last longer. To give you somewhere you could come back to whenever you need reminding.
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