choi san

Your vacation had finally arrived. After months of work, all you wanted was to return to your city to spend a few days with your family; but a severe snowstorm changed all your plans.

Your flight was cancelled and, after asking several times at the information desk, you only received the same answer: they still didn't know when flights might resume.

With a sigh of frustration, you bought a coffee to warm up and walked over to the vending machines. As you approached, you noticed a boy at the machine next to the one you were going to use, and a group of boys looking at tickets and talking about something behind him. You assumed they were all from the same group. You also noticed a pistachio granola bar stuck in the springs of your machine. "Bad luck," you thought.

You chose a strawberry bar, paid... and watched it slowly descend until it got stuck right next to the other one.

You stared at the machine in silence, trying to convince yourself that kicking it was not an option.

A small laugh caught your attention. You turned your head and saw the boy at the machine next to you. Noticing your expression, he raised a hand and pointed to the vending machine in front of him. Another bar was still stuck between the springs.

Then he pointed to the pistachio one next to yours, the one that had been stuck for a while.

"That one over there was mine too."

Yes. Before trying his luck on the other machine, he too had lost a bar exactly next to where yours had now decided to stay.

For a few seconds, they both stared at the trapped bars, thinking: how curious a way fate sometimes has of bringing two strangers together...