The fountain had been first carved and then designed to fit not at the center of the space but rather on the walls. The shape was rectangular and the waterfall poured out perfectly within one thin membrane, down into the trappings of a small slit and then deep into a hidden filtration system. A metal plate with the name, "ROBINSON SQUARE', hung at the entrance gate.

Vivian took each step gingerly along the ascent to the pathway upwards. She was used to the city's slopes, and eased her way through each climb by balancing only once every seven steps against the curvature of the stairwell. 

It had been first announced only privately between server boards and the small group-chats circulating through her social circles, that there was a secret park located within the city's downtown. It was an open air park to all, but as she made her way through the streets, the stores became increasingly more elaborate. 

In one of the neighboring displays, before the entrance to the alleyway that would lead to the small passageway to the actual entrance, hosted an elaborate dress pinned to a series of paper birds, floating against the glass oeuvre. The dress, once one looked further, was made from pure titanium, meant to be worn only by women who were taller than six feet thin.

Towards the entrance of the gate there were two men speaking in hushed tones toward each other. One was an older man with a square face, wearing long beige khakis that reached past the ankles.

"Please, if I could just charge my phone here, I'd be able to get a taxi right away." His back was angled at a slant as he was speaking. In his hands were a mangled set of headphones and a square phone. She watched from a distance as the hands shook. 

"I have low-blood sugar - so no one in the stores nearby - let me eat anything." His accent was present as he spoke, and he waited alongside each answer by the younger man who he was addressing, as both levels of physical impatience rose. 

Vivian stood calmly as they argued, adjusting the face-mask she had on her face. It was a simple one enough, made out of cotton, which she had bought at a hurry at the sports store earlier. They had sealed three face-masks each in a small paper container, which held them alongside an intricate pattern inside, which gave the entire package a minimalist appeal. 

The two men spoke to each other with masks on as well, both wearing blue surgical masks that slid slowly as they spoke, either too short for the nose or dragged upwards from the skin of the chin.

"Let me just call for delivery-," the diabetic man said assuredly, but the younger man simply shook his head and explained sympathetically that he'd have to go elsewhere. Interns regularly stood there, halfway between public relations jobs and the shining promises of a new career, elsewhere, more subtle and distinct than the last.

"Just need a place to sit-", Vivian heard this as she finally walked along her way. The young man, a stranger, simply watched her as she moved through the opening gate and into the entrance courtyard. His eyes trailed behind her and towards her backside, watching her clothes hug her thighs. Blinking, he then whipped his head back towards the sweating man, and continued to speak polite words as they both tried not to move their arms towards the other.

***

"Finally." Despite Vivian's own preparations for a greeting, when she saw Min-Soo's silhouette sitting by herself on a stone bench, she admittedly breathed this out in relief. 

She hadn't seen Min-Soo in a year. Vivian had a habit of planning out the conversation on the commute over, imagining different scenarios and sitting positions of the other person, and preemptively guessing how enthusiastic the other person would be, or aloof. 

Min-Soo closed her eyes slightly as she rose from her seat to hug Vivian. She had been listening to music openly, with the phone's video player out, with a beat and a singer whose voice was getting lost into the open air. Around them, the city's traffic was starting to become congested, and cars were honking louder and louder.

They had both taken off their face masks, at this point. Vivian, an active runner, suddenly felt confident that neither of them would need it, that they had both been careful enough about the pandemic buzzing around them in the world.

Min-Soo, despite being only six months older, had graduated a year ahead of Vivian in high-school, where they were raised in different areas. Min-Soo had decided to take a gap-year before entering college, journeying off to South Korea, her birthplace where she frequented trips back to anyways since she was a child. She had taken her time to visit her grandparents, playing with the housecats while working as an English tutor throughout the school-year. 

When they had met for the first time, Min-Soo gave her a single one-thousand won bill, as Vivian was Chinese, and had never been to Seoul, or Busan, or even much of Beijing or Shanghai. 

Keep it, Min-Soo had said, I'll be too busy to go back for a while anyways to use it. Vivian had kept that money with her for the rest of the year, startled by the small debt she had incurred simply by meeting this new person, sun-tanned from trips to the mountain temples.

They sat and chatted, with Min-Soo talking with her back bent, her elbows resting on her knees. She was speaking quickly, looking upwards and sideways towards Vivian.

"I can't even breathe sometimes, at work," Vivian said. She had been working for two years now as a junior analyst at a bulge-bracket investment firm. "I'm logging eighty to ninety hours a week."

Vivian nodded quickly at this, trying to keep up. She held her eyebrows upwards, as if surprised. But Min-Soo was always very hard-woking. During their third year, she had only seen her once. She had quickly learned as Min-Soo entered the Dean's List that time was the woman's most precious asset, and even grabbing a quick luncheon felt like a luxury for Vivian to accompany her.

"There are days where it even hurts to pee," Min-Soo laughed. "Maybe it's arrogant of me to say, but I'm the hardest worker at the firm. I used to walk around late at night in the office, because the motion-sensor lights turned off when no-one was there. I thought it'd be easier, all working from home, but the hours are getting busier."

Vivian laughed along with this, this time arching her eyebrows for an almost sympathetic look. "But I bet the pay is good," she said reassuringly. "I wish I could do that, I'd take a vacation year - for every three years I'd work. I could rest, focus on hobbies, or pastimes?"

"I was thinking of doing that, but I miss the rush." Min-Soo stood up at this point, stretching out her legs. 

Almost as if by reflex, Vivian did the same, as if she too felt a fatigue so unimaginable it could only be let go of through minute releases. As they stood in the sun, looking out into the city, the six p.m. church bells down the avenue started to ring. The metal sounds came resounding out and into the small courtyard, where they both slowly looked over to see pigeons flying out of the space. Vivian wondered, if she could also be as filled with drive, would she also be able to work on her feet, for night-shifts so long it'd hurt to go to the bathroom?

The church bells continued to ring for what felt far longer than six simple repetitions. For a moment Vivian even frowned, unable to speak over the multiple sounds, and the birds flying above over their heads, and even the city traffic down below. 

When the bell had finally stopped, they both realized they'd been standing up the entire time, waiting for the world to go back to normal. Min-Soo folded the back of her trousers back down before sitting on the bench again. Vivian noticed for the first time that she was wearing her work tag, a small laminated rectangle attached to a blue lanyard.  

Min-Soo rubbed her eyes. "Christ," she said, nodding towards the avenue outside. "I hate when that happens."

Min-Soo had taken out cigarettes, which startled her companion. Vivian had remembered drinking with Min-Soo one night in their senior year, when Min-Soo had been taking a recess between studying to drink half a pint of Guinness, before finishing up an entire pack. You need to make me promise to quit these things, she had slurred, messy hair resting on her forehead. I'm too tired this semester, and they keep me awake. 

Vivian simply watched as her friend lit another, smoking two in a row. Despite the issues for her health, she'd admired this habit. It was a sign of a strong mind, Min-Soo burning a path forward even in the bleakest of conditions.

"How about you, are you up to anything?" Min-Soo said, carefully treading the conversation. "It's hard to find a job right now, but it's impressive you have one."

Vivian bristled at this point. She'd been avoiding any conversations about her career. On her social media platforms, and also her professional profile, she had been touting to her classmate that she had become a stylist for a hip photography studio downtown, near the bodegas where the finance and computer-science majors were starting to take up. But truthfully, she was more or less an assistant to the PR side of the studio, and often spent time running small digital errands, much less working with any grander projects. Her parents meanwhile, paid for half her studio apartment's rent.

"Oh, you know I don't care about that." Vivian feigned. "I'm here for you, talking about my work gets me stressed out, anyways." Vivian felt a bubble of relief, it wasn't exactly a lie.

Min-Soo watched her carefully after this, breathing out a jet of smoke from the side of her mouth. She grumbled and kept her arms folded.

"How's Derek, or Jiyoung? Have you seen any of them?" Vivian asked. In truth, she hadn't seen much of the old classmates, having only barely been able to keep in touch with Min-Soo. They had all gone separate ways after living in the same dormitory building, where four hundred students sat and studied in rooms stacked floor after floor, seven stories high. 

"Derek's still fooling around. Did you see him online? He's twenty-six and trying out bass guitar. God, can you imagine that? I could never." Min-Soo shook her head at his, chuckling at the idea. "I know that Jiyoung is doing her thing, out in the art world. I heard she's even gotten her sculptures into some magazines. I saw her being interviewed, standing with her back straight, frowning at the camera. What a mark to make."

Vivian opened her mouth in awe. Amazed that her colleagues had grown so much in just a short fragment of time, in what felt for her just four years ticking by.

Min-Soo eyed Vivian for a moment and said, "the real question I ask myself, is whatever happened to Ada."

"Ada? From the fourth floor at the dorms? What's going on with her?" Vivian remembered Ada only barely, remembering the girl who always came and went through the common area. Sometimes Ada would show up only late at night, walking so quietly by the rest of the students that it felt as if she was hiding something. 

"Oh, you didn't talk to her much, did you? She and I used to talk a lot, late at night when everyone had gone to sleep. It had started mainly because we were taking the same seminar with the graduate students."

Min-Soo tapped her finger on her cigarette pack, not taking out another. "She was the smartest one of us all. She kept kicking my ass over how I was studying, and what I was reading. I think she graduated with three degrees, honestly." 

Vivian chuckled. "Even smarter than you? That's hard to imagine."

"Oh no, she was the real deal. We're talking truly ingenious." Min-Soo looked off into the distance. "She was brilliant, still is."

"So what's the matter? You make it sound like she died or something," Vivian was the one leaning her elbows into her lap at this point, curious.

"No, she's fine. I don't know. I thought she'd go for a Ph.D., or maybe become someone famous. But it seems that Jiyoung is beating us all in that department." Min-Soo scoffed at this, thinking of the energetic Jiyoung who never smoked any cigarettes. "But someone from the same seminar we took, told me that Ada simply teaches now. She's just picked up a gig at a prep school for white kids, somewhere out in Connecticut. Needed the money."

Min-Soo looked quickly at Vivian, before stating, "she's out of the action. It's just a little disappointing." Vivian watched her friend finally smoke the third cigarette, and the bells started to ring again as the hour turned. 

***

A woman in her sixties walked along the path below Robinson Square. Despite the seemingly warm October, she had grown cold. She had on a thick red scarf, which she kept secured to her face to double as a cloth mask when she entered stores. The second hip replacement had been an entire bust, and the insurance wouldn't be able to pay her out.

Her confidence on the line, she looked around, before resting her shoulder against the wall of the building next to her. Up above was a small roof-top courtyard, built several floors up into the city skyline. She could see the outline of hydrangea bushes growing out into the air, and the voices of two, maybe three young women talking up ahead.

Her joint pain, her long days. She started to groan, slightly. Once, then twice, louder this time. Wondering if someone could hear her, without looking at her face.

***

"It's getting late," Min-Soo said. "I can walk you to the subway if that's alright. But before you leave me forever, let me take a picture of us. Can't wait to only be able to meet with you four years from now." She laughed at herself for saying this, and Vivian slapped her elbow jokingly.

The two moved slowly around each other, laughing as they adjusted their grip on the other's shoulders, trying to sync their faces up to the phone. 

They appear, almost, like holograms. Their twinkling steel belts, which fashionably tie into their outfits, flashed against the sun. 

***

The next day, a small group of children hosted by a private academy will be brought to the park for recess. They carry leather handles to their small bags and some even have boxes filled with recreational technology. Their school recently bought a new set of educational screens for each and every person, allowing each student to be taught remotely from different parts of the building, where glass screens have been erected to keep each other at a safe distance. In the early afternoons, they drank and ate large portions, filled with rich white chicken and a cranberry sauce one spread with a given knife.

Their instructor will point brightly at a single perfect spider’s web, woven in synchronization to the blue tips of a hydrangea plant. They will woo and awe at the splendor of the weave, watching the glimmering dew shine out into the morning light.