A Hefty Job for One Man

[Hana Choi]

New Year, New You, they say. Yet, here she was in this old town. The town where she was born, played, fought, got lost, cut her knee, bruised her shins, kissed her first boy, her first girl, and discovered a deeper part of herself she could never share with anyone. At least, as far as she knew. So much had changed in the past 6 years that she had been apart from Hazleton, but not that. In some ways, it was a new her, she supposed. She wondered how much had changed about the town. Her mother had told her that the town was growing, but who knew what that meant? It could simply be that more people had flourishing yards, leading her to believe that the town itself was gaining life.

Whatever the answer, here she was - moving back home into an apartment of her own. A single heavy set professional mover was painstakingly dolly-ing one piece of furniture at a time to the 3rd floor. Hana was doing what she could, but there was only so much weight she could carry at once. She was embarrassed to take as many breaks as she did, as the man helping her took none. He reminded her here and there of the time he had left before his contract was up and he had other appointments, so no time could be added. She had prepaid only two hours and it was a hefty job for one man. Hana had foolishly thought that the cold weather would power them through it. She may be older than when she left this town, but that did not require her to be wiser.

Or so she mused to herself as she took a sip of a cool blue sports drink, leaning on the hood of her car. The sun was barely peaking beyond the clouds, giving her a single shaft of light to bask in for a moment. Even if her body was being over worked, she enjoyed these moments. Her and the warmth of the sun tickling her cheeks. Though, time was ticking away and she could not waste time. She needed to get as much done as possible before she was left alone with the remainder of the load to heft up herself.

Shoving whatever energy she had left into the soles of her feet, Hana hopped to and marched to the wide open moving truck to assess what was left. Just as she got there, she heard the crashing sound of the man's dolly hitting a corner as he started descending the staircase once again. Aghast at the progress he had made, Hana found only her mattress, cat tree, and a heap of boxes before her. She started around the boxes first, dragging together all the ones she knew to be heavy that she could not lift that far alone. Her muscles were exhausted and craved a long nap. She could not wait until this was all over and she could lay in the light of the curtainless window for the remainder of the evening.

"Leave that there a minute. There'll only be time fer the bed and cat thingy and I'mma need yer help," his gruff voice rumbled.

"Actually," she chimed with a calm and steady voice. "I can take that apart and bring it up piece by piece. It would be much more helpful if you could take these heavy boxes up."

"Sure thing, but we'll need to get this sucker out of here first. I can't leave with yer stuff in here." Obliging, Hana pushed the boxes against the wall and moved closer to see what was needed. He then instructed her to partially close the truck door, so the tall cat tree could be leaned over, then open it back up again.

The following 30 minutes flew. He finished taking up the heaviest things just in time to simply unload the remainder before the stairs and leave her staring at the pile in bewilderment. Wondering where she would get the energy to take it all up herself. First step was unscrewing the cat tree. The most painful piece of furniture she had, as the cat that once sat atop it like a King had passed away only months ago. Needing a moment, Hana sat beside the tree and rested her head in her arms. Her long braid falling to the side and revealing the leopard-like tattoos that adorned her spine.

[Logan Go]

Letting out a yawn, Logan parked out front at the apartment building and he cut the engine. All the New Year's festivities had taken their toll on him; he hadn't even been home for two nights in a row and he was definitely spoiling for some sleep. Another yawn escaped him as he pulled the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them into his pocket as he slid out of the vehicle. Slamming the door closed, he immediately hated himself for it. He wasn't hungover but he was so tired that the sound alone made his head pang.

As he started toward the building, however, he saw that there was a familiar enough looking girl standing outside with what looked like a pile of boxes and furniture. The closer he got, the more familiar he realized she was. Logan snapped his fingers a couple of times as he approached her.

"Hana?" he said, remembering her from their high school days. Logan hadn't grown up here but he moved to Hazleton when he was fifteen and there was only one high school. It was hard not to recognize certain faces and Hana was one of the prettier girls in school, even back then.

"What are you doing back here? I thought you left here like... a decade ago."

That wasn't true. More like five years? Six? Something like that. Logan just had a penchant for over exaggerating things for dramatic's sake on occasion. Without even asking if she needed help, he loaded up on a few of the items to help out. Why not? He'd never get any real sleep if he knew he left her out here to tend to this on her own.

[Hana Choi]

Sounds flooded Hana's ears as she rested her eyes atop her arms. Birds chirped and fluttered in a nearby tree. It was a familiar sound - that chirp. It rang bells in her memory that sang of sweeter and more innocent times. A cold wind toyed with quivering leaves that held fast their branches and fought against the sky's torment. What kind of tree could it be that still had leaves this late in the year, she wondered. Engines roared as they passed by on their way to the suburbs beyond.

Enough. She could do this all evening and would later awaken to find her belongings either dreadfully still at the bottom of the stairs or swiped by strangers unsuspecting of how mundane the contents were. Gathering in a gust of air to claim as her own, Hana pushed herself to her feet again, blinked away her discomfort, then started unscrewing the cat tree. As if she were competing in a real-life tetris battle royal, she managed to puzzle together the pieces in a way that would be easier for her to carry up in only two trips. Unceremoniously, she dropped the pieces in a corner of her new apartment and hurried back down for the remaining boxes.

There wasn't much left, if she looked at it just the right way. There were a handful of relatively light, but fragile, boxes and a few heavier ones remaining. She stood and pondered. Five more trips and she was finished! And that's only if she carried one box at a time. If only the mover had left her the dolly...

Hana was snapped out of her reverie by literal snapping. Someone approached from behind her that knew her name. Whipping her head around, she spotted a man roughly her age approaching. Her memory was taking a moment to snap back into place, but his seemed on point. He spoke as if he knew her.

Stammering for a moment, Hana brushed the stray hair that fell from her braid behind her ear. "I-It was time," she chirped cheerily. The whispers of a memory were just beginning to trickle into the pond of her mind when he stepped passed her to lift two of her boxes from the earth. Her face warmed, despite the cold, embarrassed to be in a needy position, but also grateful to live near someone so willing to lend a hand. She knew moving home was the right choice. Nothing felt the same as Hazleton. Nothing felt as welcoming.

Hurriedly, Hana picked up a box and moved to lead the way to her apartment. She knew his face, but was struggling for his name. "I never meant to be gone so long after college. It just sort of... swept me away, you know? For a decade," She exaggerated her final words, glancing back at him from time to time, hoping she would catch his face at a certain angle that would scream his name back into her brain. Go felt right. Go...

It came back like a wild wind in her lungs and she spun on her heels with a smile brighter than the day's forecast. "Logan, I don't think we would have met if I'd left a decade ago. That would be a true shame." Chuckling inwardly for being so incredibly slow, she turned back and strode though her open door and sat her box beside the couch.

[Logan Go]

"Heh. Right, a whole decade," he said with a grin slowly forming. Hana was right to throw that word at him. If she was gone for a whole decade, they wouldn't have met at all and he wouldn't be helping her now. No, no. That wasn't true. Even if she was a stranger, he would have helped her. That was just the way he'd been brought up, despite other questionable points in his life thus far.

"And that would be a real shame, you're right..."

Hana was always smart, though. How else did she get out of this place? Yet she was back and she said she hadn't meant to be away so long... Logan was kind of one of the casual friends caught in her orbit growing up. At one point, sure, he had a schoolboy crush on her (who didn't?) although it never went much of anywhere. There were always other things, excuses. Then she went away for school and Logan stayed behind with his friends.

She so wouldn't want to hear what he did for a living now.

But he was curious about what she did. He eyed the thing she had been messing with when he arrived, not recognizing it for what it was, not at first. He followed her lead and their steps led through an open doorway. Logan gently set down the boxes he grabbed at the bottom of the steps.

"Heh. You're a floor up from me," he said, before looking around her new place. It wasn't much different than his own, really. Apartments tended to be mostly identical that way.

"What brings you back here, anyway?"

[Hana Choi]

Still smiling, feeling revitalized from her exhausting day by the joy of running into an old friend, Hana shifted her footing to nudge the boxes he'd placed with her foot to keep a clear walkway around the chaos. That way, at least, she would be able to walk around until she got around to unpacking it all. She was grateful for the care he took in putting the boxes down, as some of her favorite photos were in it. For how fiercely nostalgic she was, it was a shock she could forget his name. She felt ashamed for it and determined to never let it on. For a normal person, it would have had to take effort to forget someone like him. They were never wildly close, but she knew him to be intensely.. out of her league. She could not even consider the 'what ifs' outside of pure humor.

"Wow, so close! You'd think I was stalking you." Hana looked to the sky and scrunched her face in the same old way she always did when she was being silly. "I mean, I might be."

With a sideways smile, she navigated around him and through the door again pondering the answer to his question. Why had she come back? Some days, she felt the true question was why she had left. She had gone off to college in a city that was so far from greenery she felt suffocated. Then, upon graduation she got offered a job in yet another city. She worked there for two years before she couldn't take it anymore. She missed home. Being able to escape into the woods and feel one with the earth. The nice people of a small town that all knew one another... "Not sure... I didn't go to school for Astrology, or I might speculate there was a black hole here sucking us all in," she joked, following the stairs down to the second floor where he must have lived according to his statement.

She paused there, feeling awkward about him feeling obligated to help her. "What about you, Mr. Go?"

[Logan Go]

"Oh yeah? How did I never notice?"

He couldn't keep the stupid grin off his face. She was playing with him and he knew that; Hana didn't seem like the actual stalking type. Not that he was wholly experienced with stalkers, although there were a few handsy people at the club. That sort of thing just went with the business but he could handle himself.

Watching her smile and skirt around him, he only followed her out the door after a few seconds passed. Back down to the rest of the things? He peered over the steps. Whatever jackass left her to do this on her own was... well, a jackass. Hopefully she had help with some of the larger items he saw were already in her apartment.

Loping down the steps alongside her, he listened, then stopped when she stopped at the second floor. He was so busy listening to her that he didn't actually expect the question to be rebounded back to him. Mr. Go. Logan made a face at that name.

"Just call me Logan." He propped an arm against the nearby railing, since they were stopped out in front of his own apartment. "And what about me? Nothing too exciting. I didn't go anywhere or do anything. I thought about the army, you know, but I guess ultimately, the black hole here wouldn't let me go."

[Hana Choi]

Cold metal stung the palm side of her warm fingers as she turned with her back to the descending stairs and grabbed the railing for support. Were she a more clumsy person, it might have been worrisome, but Hana always had sure footing. It was her hands that weren't so graceful with holding things. Many an object had crashed at her feet, but so rarely was it her body hitting the ground. Though, admittedly, this would be an astronomically terrible time for her streak to break. All of that considered, she still took a step backward to where her heel touched the very edge of the top step.

Noticing the face he made, obvious distaste for the name she'd given him, did nothing to dissuade her from using it. If anything, it made her want to dig further at him. That, or, she was avoiding the work waiting for her at the bottom of the next flight of stairs.

Her smile shifted from devious to warm by the end of his reply. "Well, Mr. Logan, considering they say a black hole is originally a star, perhaps the black hole isn't the town after all." The corniest thing was about to escape her lips and it likely should be among the last things she said before she made everything comically worse for herself. Consequently, she took another step backward onto the next step. "Perhaps you're the black hole, and instead of being trapped here yourself, you draw others in."

Grinning, she swung a foot back to turn her body downward. "Maybe that's why I'm stalking you," she called back.

[Logan Go]

Huh? At first, Logan didn't know what Hana was getting at when she spoke of how black holes were originally stars and that maybe the town itself wasn't the black hole after all. He was still trying to connect stars with black holes when she continued and flattered him with her comparison. Now his smile grew and he leaned slightly forward.

"So I'm the reason you're back?"

That's what she was saying, right? In so many poetic words. Logan didn't even know why he was so pleased to hear it. Maybe he muddled what she was saying but that sure did sound like what she meant. One day Hana was gone, going to school, and then she was back here, talking about stars and being pulled back into this weird little old town. Because of me?

Hana was already heading down to the next floor, leaving him hanging.

"Hey!"

It didn't take long to catch up to her, even surpassing her and hitting the ground floor before her to look up at her on the steps.

"Hang on, stalker," he said, putting out a hand. "If you're here for me, I have a question for you."

[Hana Choi]

She had nearly escaped! Nearly gotten away with a corny joke exit. At least, in her mind. Clearly Logan had no intention to let her off so easy. She hoped he would laugh and go home, but he followed her and cut her off in a way reminiscent of every television drama she had ever seen. Handsome guy, unbearably sweet face, blocking her path asking for clarifications.

She worried a little he had taken her seriously. She had only meant the comment as a joke. After all, she had no idea he still lived here and had not spoken a word to or about him since high school. College had swept her thoughts to other avenues than high school crushes.

Leaning into the joke, not sure yet if he believed her white lie or was simply being friendly, Hana smiled with feigned innocence. "Whatever you're about to ask, I'm sure it's classified material." She leaned against the railing once more as if to get comfortable and settle in to deflect his prodding.

"But, give it a shot, hot shot."

[Logan Go]

"Classified, huh?"

He knew he liked her for a reason. Back in high school, when Logan was tall but not fully grown into his height, he was that guy who was known for playing basketball and hanging out with his jock friends. The thing was, he wasn't locked into the group as a whole. Real life wasn't television--he had nerdy friends, goth friends, whatever. And he didn't just date cheerleaders. Honestly, he was confident, this was true. But when it came to Hana, he might have been just a shade shy.

Because! She seemed so out of his league. Smart, pretty, the kind of girl that probably didn't pay him much attention. She remembered his name, though. That was something.

It wasn't as if Logan pined for her when she left. Every now and again, her name came up in conversation, by friends that stayed behind, by friends of friends who knew her. And he would remember her and wonder what became of her. That was the long and short of it.

Now she was here, though! And only a floor away in the same apartment building.

"Okay, this is the question before the question, then. You're not dating anyone right now... are you?"

[Hana Choi]

Lightning shot through her body, burning her core and chilling her fingertips. What was he asking right now?? She had been in town for a whole of three hours and is already being prodded about her love life? Or lack-there-of... The words felt heavy, her throat tight. Hana pursed her lips and weighed his question in her mind for a moment. Surely he wasn't being serious. He was toying with her! She had been joking with him this entire time anyway.

Chuckling awkwardly while fighting to keep sarcasm in her tone, Hana stepped forward a little - secretly preparing to make a quick maneuver.

"I have a question for your question."

With reflexes as quick and deft as a cat, Hana ducked under his arm and twisted around him, landing between him and the boxes herself. Now, she could turn and pick up one of the few remaining. The move doubling as a way to get her to her task and also provide her the time to regain her composure.

"How could I possibly have time to date while stalking you?" her cooled voice chimed smoothly - one could hardly tell she was struggling before. Like a feline that failed to leap to it's target, but landed square on her feet and got to walk away like nothing ever went wrong...

[Logan Go]

Whoa! Okay. He turned around and watched her grab the box nearest her.

"All right," he said, leaning down to grab another box to help out. At the very least, he could help her with the rest of her things. But he was worried now that his question had pushed her away. Flirting came second nature to him. Working at the club made him more confident, maybe--dare he say it?--even a little cocky sometimes. Maybe he came on too strong.

"Good question."

So he didn't make her uncomfortable then. Logan... couldn't tell. Hana was too cool, too smooth. He knew she wasn't really stalking him, that it was part of a playful game. But he thought... actually, she might be uncomfortable with his question--because she was deflecting with an artful joke. So now wasn't the time for asking her out. It would come off... pushy. He tucked it away for a different time, choosing instead to play along with her.

"But you must be good at it, if you've been stalking me all this time from... where have you been all this time...?"

[Hana Choi]

Her cogs were turning at an increased rate, threatening self combustion at any moment. She still could not decide 100% if he was being serious with that question. Anyone could have guessed what the follow-up question would be if he was being genuine. If he was joking, he was one hell of a poker player.

She was grateful, at least, for the diversion of moving her boxes and that he continued to help while probing her for information. No longer hindered by him blocking the staircase, she lead the way once more. Finally, his voice took on a more playful sounding tone and her shoulders released a little of their tension.

"Sacremento," she answered plainly.

Her body was fighting her by the second flight of stairs. Re-invigorated with energy from seeing him again or not, her body was worn out. She had to pause and shift her box before braving the steps again. The moment she was done here, her consciousness was done for. She would likely sleep on the floor out of a lack of energy to dress her bed or move boxes off the couch.

"I..." she re-shifted her box a second time. "I spent a fortune on the cameras I had installed in your apartment and work." She would laugh at herself if she only knew what the last part might have meant.

[Logan Go]

If she was curious about his question, she certainly didn't let on. Curious. He wasn't sure if he was reading her or not but he thought that she was backing out on him and dancing around on him because she was uncomfortable. She was still playful and her tone was still light but... Maybe she's just shy...?

This was exactly like it was back in high school, he realized as he made sure to watch his step and keep the box well balanced. Looking over at Hana, she seemed to be having trouble with hers, since she kept messing with it and moving it around. Should he take it? The box he was holding was a bigger box and if he nabbed hers, it would put him off balance. Hm.

They were on the third floor before he had a chance to make a decision. Lucky for Hana and the contents of her box, Logan didn't drop it when he heard her flippant response. He blinked in surprise, then let out a laugh that he tried to disguise by lowering his head but he couldn't hide the shaking of his shoulders.

"At work, huh?" he asked, expression completely mirthful. "How did you like what you saw?"

[Hana Choi]

Angels were singing sweet glorious repetitions of Hallelujah the moment Hana's feet adorned the top of the stairs. It was difficult to maintain this charade with Logan with thoughts in her mind of exactly how much pain she would be in tomorrow morning. The box she held wasn't even all that heavy. Lifting the weight of her own body up those stairs one more time was daunting enough. Though, Hana was never one to focus on the negative. If anything, she was unnervingly positive in sad times. Laughing while telling her closest friends in Sacramento that her cat had passed at only 6 years old...

Despite the thoughts of her impending doom after the next trip, Hana smiled through a quiet groan as she set her box down against the wall. New mindset - there was only one trip left. Only one and then the glory of a nap was all hers. That is, if she could get the buzz of seeing Logan out of her mind.

Golden eyes turned his way in time to see remaining evidence of his laughter of his face as he carried on their zestful conversation. "Mmmm," she hummed. Biting her bottom lip and looking toward the ceiling, she feigned - well it wasn't so fake - thinking carefully about her answer, as if she did not want to say. In truth, she was not sure what to say. Her body was increasingly taking attention away from that part of her brain.

"If I'm being honest, it was a little drab."

That made sense. Everyone's work seemed boring to themselves. Right?

"It's after dark that things get interesting."

Hana leaned against a tall stack of boxes at her hip. What was even in that last box? Was it worth it? Perhaps she could just put it in her car...