aeri learns that the smallest moments often leave the biggest impact.
Sometimes Aeri found herself wondering whether she had imagined those two weeks entirely.
The memories always seemed to come at the weirdest of times, triggered by the most random of things. The smell of sun cream, the taste of salt in the air, the clattering of suitcase wheels rolling over bumpy cobblestones. It all made her feel like she was twenty-two again. Sunburnt and perpetually barefoot on a small island off the coast of Croatia where time seemed to stand still.
It had started as a girls' trip, that much she remembered clearly. Four friends, two weeks and cheap flights they'd booked during exam season because Yizhuo had declared that ‘future us can worry about the money.’
It turns out she was right. Future Aeri found herself worrying about too many things. Her job, her long-term aspirations, money. But what she’d never expected? Spending so much time thinking about someone whose surname she could no longer remember confidently.
She remembered his laugh and the way his left eye twitched slightly when he was trying to convince her to do something. The way he often had to pause to think of the right English word before giving up and waving his hands around dramatically instead.
She remembered how embarrassed he always claimed to be about his accent, which only seemed to encourage her to find even more excuses to hear him speak.
But his surname?
That had disappeared somewhere over the years. Or maybe she’d never even known it at all…
It all started on the third night, at a beach party they weren’t even aware of until hours before it began. A waiter at the restaurant they’d had lunch at had told them about it, he’d said it was a must to really understand how the locals party.
So they went. And looking back at it now, Aeri always wondered how differently her whole holiday might have unfolded if they'd chosen another restaurant for lunch.
She almost hadn’t gone. By the time the four of them had showered, argued over outfits and shared exactly one mirror to do their make up, the idea of trekking across half the island for a party full of complete strangers had started to lose its appeal.
"Aeri, stop being such a bore, we’re all ready to go" Minjeong had argued.
"Honestly, I’m just tired, we’ve had such a long day," Aeri had countered.
"We probably won’t ever get an experience like this again, let’s just go."
Those words came from Jimin. Safe and usually unadventurous Jimin. Somehow, that had been enough to convince her.
So they went.
They walked for what felt like forever, in the warmth of the night, down small alleyways with cobblestones paths, weaving through groups of people heading in all different directions.
When they eventually got there, all Aeri remembered thinking was how makeshift it all looked. Speakers that had been dragged onto the beach, a ‘bar’ that consisted of a few wooden pallets joined together with some fairy-lights strung across the top.
Hundreds of strangers, all joined together in one spot to dance, drink, and enjoy being young.
Warm beer in plastic cups, music loud enough that hearing the next morning would be hard, and the euphoric high of a never-ending summer.
Maybe coming hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
"Okay," Aeri admitted quietly as she looked around. "This is actually incredible."
"Some risks are worth taking," Jimin said, nudging Aeri's shoulder with a small smile on her face.
Minjeong and Yizhuo had already disappeared towards the music, immediately being pulled into the crowd and dancing like they had no cares whatsoever. And maybe they didn’t, and perhaps that was the beauty of it all.
Jimin lingered beside Aeri. "You coming?"
"In a minute." Aeri nodded towards the makeshift wooden bar. "I need a drink first."
"We'll be over there."
Aeri watched her disappear towards the other two before making her way across the sand to the bar. She doesn’t even remember what she’d ordered, probably something with vodka, or maybe it was something local? What she does remember is the first time she saw him.
He was across the bar, talking to one of the guys serving drinks, definitely a local. She could tell almost immediately.
Not because of the language - they were speaking too quickly for her to even begin deciphering - but because he looked entirely at home. Relaxed and comfortable, like he’d been at this exact beach hundreds of times before. There was something almost charming about how at ease he looked, Aeri couldn’t help but watch him.
As if sensing it, he glanced up and their eyes met. It lasted no more than a couple of seconds, but it was enough for Aeri to feel completely mortified that she’d been caught staring. But then he smiled. Not in the sleazy kind of way she spent many nights out ignoring. No, just the kind of smile strangers give each other in passing. She couldn’t help but smile back.
She remembered the bartender's voice pulling her back to reality, but she wouldn’t be able to tell you what she’d been drinking, those details are all fuzzy around the edges. Instead, what she does remember is wandering back across the sand to where her friends were dancing.
And for a while, everything else disappeared.
Time blurred, one song melted into the next, and all Aeri remembered thinking is how she was so happy her friends had convinced her to come. She hadn’t had that much fun dancing in a long time.
At some point, lost in the feeling of the music, she momentarily lost track of what the rest of the girls were doing. She assumed Jimin and Minjeong were together, they usually were. Yizhuo was dancing with a group of girls she’d never met before. Typical.
Aeri remembered laughing to herself before turning back towards the music to dance again. And there he was, the same easy smile, one hand lifted slightly, almost like a question.
Shall we?
She doesn’t really remember how long they spent sitting on the beach. A few hours, maybe. Or maybe it was until sunrise. The concept of time seemed to blur from the moment she’d taken his hand on the dance floor.
She doesn't remember who suggested leaving the party. Maybe it had been him, or maybe it had been her. Maybe they'd simply wandered away without either of them realising it. What she did remember is the cold feeling of the water on their feet as they walked along the shoreline, their shoes dangling from their hands.
For a while they didn’t really say much, he always seemed to be thinking hard about which words to use before he spoke. The silence wasn’t awkward, it was probably easier than it should’ve been. Looking back, she sometimes wondered if the reason they got along so well was because neither of them had enough words to ruin the silence.
He broke the silence first, smiling to himself almost as if he couldn’t quite figure out what he was trying to say but was going to anyway. "You are..." He stopped again before laughing under his breath. "Agh, English is hard…"
Aeri couldn't help smiling. "Take your time, I can wait."
He looked at her for another second before lifting both hands in surrender. "You are..." Another pause. "Different." She nodded at him, almost to encourage him to keep speaking. "Tourists, they come. They drink." He mimed taking shots one after another. "Dance." Another gesture. "Then..." He shrugged dramatically. "Gone."
She laughed softly. "You aren’t wrong, no."
"Every week, new people." He gestured toward the beach, and mimicked dancing again. "Dancing, drinking, sunburn, bye."
Aeri laughed. "So, you ask a new girl every week to dance with you then?"
He laughed, shaking his head. "No, no."
"No?"
"Sometimes..." He searched for the word again. "...they ask me."
"Someone’s confident."
"No." He grinned. "Just a lucky man."
She tilted her head. "And tonight?"
He looked at her for a long moment before answering. "Very lucky man."
Aeri just smiled at his words, and for the first time all night, she looked at him properly.
If you asked her to describe him now, she wasn’t convinced that she’d be able to give the most accurate description. The years had mostly blurred the details. She couldn't remember if his eyes were brown or hazel, maybe a little of both. The clothes he’d been wearing that night were also a faded memory.
But what she could remember? How strong his hands had felt when they held hers. The way he liked to fiddle with the bracelets that adorned her arms. She couldn't remember a single conversation they'd had while he was doing it. Not one. Yet years later, she could still feel it perfectly.
He wasn't the most handsome man she'd ever met, no. But that wasn’t really what had pulled them into each other's orbit anyway. No, her favourite thing about him wasn’t a physical one, it was the way he always seemed so intent on listening to any and everything she said.
"So..." he eventually said. "You stay far fro-"
Aeri kissed him.
She wasn't entirely sure why she'd kissed him first. At twenty-two she'd called it spontaneity. Years later, she wasn't entirely convinced there was much difference.
Maybe she'd realised where he was going with the question before he'd managed to finish asking it. Maybe there was something impossibly endearing about the way he seemed to wrestle with every English sentence as though each word had to be won first. Or maybe she’d just really liked the look of his lips.
She vaguely remembered the looks on her friends' faces when she’d eventually returned to their apartment at seven that morning. What she hadn’t forgotten was the teasing she’d endured for the rest of the day. The questions of whether she’d be seeing her ‘Croatian boyfriend’ again, the demands of a detailed recounting of the night.
But maybe the worst part of the morning had been realising they hadn’t exchanged information, and that she’d probably never see him again.
By sunset, the teasing had finally subsided. The four of them found themselves at another beach bar. A quieter one this time, maybe one that’d probably be considered for tourists. They’d exchanged quiet conversations about everything and nothing.
She’d ended up alone, but she’s not certain on how exactly it’d happened. If she had to guess, she’d have said that Jimin and Minjeong wandered off together, and Yizhuo probably decided she needed something livelier. Or maybe it was even Aeri that had drifted away by herself. She had always loved watching the boats swaying in the harbour, enjoyed the solitude and peace it brought her.
And for the first time that day, everything felt still.
"You disappear very quickly."
The voice came from behind her, and it had made Aeri turn so abruptly she nearly knocked her drink from the table. He stood there with his hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets, smiling in exactly the same way he had the night before.
"I..." she laughed softly, shaking her head. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here." He grinned. "But why I’m here at bar? I look for you."
She blinked. "What?"
"I look everywhere." He pointed vaguely back towards the town. "Old town." Another gesture. "Beach." He shrugged. "So many tourists, no Aeri."
She couldn't help smiling. "You were actually looking for me?"
"I think to myself..." He searched briefly for the words. "...maybe impossible." He paused again. "But now?" He looked at her for a moment before smiling again. “Now I’m a very lucky man twice."
She found herself smiling even harder at his words. He held one hand out and pointed towards the waterfront with his other. "You’ll come with me?"
In hindsight, Aeri can’t help but think to herself that traipsing around an island alone with a foreign man was probably a terribly unsafe idea. But the thought only seems to make her smile even more. After all, he was probably the gentlest man she’d ever met.
She remembered that seven days into the ‘girls’ trip, she’d spent more time with this man than she had with any of her friends. She learned that he was chronically late, that he talked in his sleep, but maybe most importantly? He had an incredible knack for making her laugh.
The memory of their night on a boat is maybe the most vivid one. He was supposed to cook for them, or at least she thought he would. But he burned everything, so instead, they found themselves sitting on the deck in the middle of the sea, sharing a bottle of wine between them. She can’t remember if the wine was white or red, she can’t even remember if it tasted good. What she does remember is how good his lips felt on hers.
They laid on the deck of the boat for what felt like hours, the wine long gone. The boat was small, one owned by his uncle. Nothing fancy, but it didn’t need to be. They’d settled into a strangely comfortable silence, his fingers were tracing patterns along her arm. Or maybe it was her tracing them on his? She wasn’t sure. What she does remember is that he broke the silence.
"Two days."
Aeri frowned at his words. "What?"
"Two days." He smiled sadly, looking down at the bottle of wine between them before back at her. "You go home in two days."
She climbed onto his lap, tucking a stand of hair behind his ear. “You’ve been counting?”
He gave a tiny nod. "Every day."
"Then maybe we should make them count," she said before leaning forward and kissing him again, deeper this time.
She remembered kissing him deeper, the way he’d sighed against her lips as she undid the buttons of his shirt, nails scratching his skin gently as she pushed it down his shoulders. She remembered how good he’d felt inside her, how much he seemed to enjoy watching her on top. She remembered laughing because the boat rocked every time she moved her hips against him.
He’d made a joke about falling into the sea if she wasn’t gentle, and she remembered being entirely unbothered by the idea, the high she’d been chasing was worth the risk. They didn’t sleep much that night, neither of them had wanted to, too busy trying to enjoy their final moments together.
She remembered watching him sleep, studying the details of his face. Details she couldn’t even begin to name now. The only thing she can remember is how impossibly warm his body had felt next to hers, and how when he’d called her strange for watching him sleep, she’d just kissed him again.
The two days that had followed their night on the boat were a blur, much like the rest of the holiday. Maybe she’d met his uncle, or maybe it was just another Croatian man. She couldn’t ever truly be sure. What she did remember is that neither of them spoke about how close to the end everything was. As though refusing to acknowledge the ending might somehow delay it.
The morning she left it was raining. She remembered that because she'd been irrationally annoyed by it. The island had spent almost two weeks giving her endless blue skies, only to decide the day she was leaving should be gloomy. Looking back at it now, maybe the universe was just reflecting her own emotions back on her.
He’d walked her to the ferry terminal, and didn't speak a single word the whole time. Or maybe he had, and maybe it had all just been lost with the passing of time. There were only four words she can recall from that day.
"I am happy I met you."
They’d shared a kiss as she’d boarded the ferry. She looked back once. He was exactly where she'd left him, hands buried in his pockets, smiling despite everything. She never looked back a second time. She couldn’t. Instead, she’d settled for holding Yizhuo’s hand, eyes closed, head against the window.
Some memories are easier to keep beautiful if you never watch them disappear.