02 // proposition

Heegun holds his head with both hands.  He’s been looking at his computer screen for too long, long enough for his head to hurt and his eyes to dry out.  Finances are a displeasing aspect of business sometimes; they can get menial, and if there is a brief moment of distraction, Heegun needs to backtrack pretty far to get it going smoothly again.

He knows that he needs to take a break when the numbers lose focus for no apparent reason.  He blinks rapidly and massages his temples to relieve at least some of the pressure on his brain.  He glances at the clock in corner of his computer screen; there should be a lull in business as of right now.  If it had been any other day, Heegun would have touched tables during peak hours and built or improved relationships with customers, new and old alike.  However, he had to work through preliminary finances before handing it off to Seokjin, his accountant.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and Heegun already knows who it is.

Kwangsoo has always been just awkward enough to be timid in everything that he does.  The first time that they met, Heegun saw something in the gangly young man; it was endearing that he persevered despite the fact that luck had apparently abandoned him. 

“Come in.” Heegun calls out; turning around in his chair so that when Kwangsoo inevitably pokes his head he’ll be facing the waiter.

The door of his office squeaks slowly at a very high pitch; Kwangsoo is trying to minimize noise and annoyance, even if the fruits of his labor yield nothing.  (Perhaps it was kindness that Heegun saw at the core of Kwangsoo’s soul.)  Kwangsoo slips in a gracefully as he can.  He manages to knee to doorframe, hissing in pain as he faces his boss.  Kwangsoo bows deeply, as the start of an apology for interrupting Heegun’s concentration.  He speaks once he straightens out his back, “A woman asked for you.” Kwangsoo states, quietly adding, “By name.”

Heegun perks up. It’s been over a week since his encounter with Chun Sungim, and he’s been patiently waiting and hoping that she’ll keep her promise to come visit him often.  At least, he thinks it’s a promise between them; she didn’t say that she would, but she did ask if she could come frequently.  Heegun asks, “Did she give you her name?”

Kwangsoo shakes his head, “No.  Sorry, I should have asked.”

Heegun pauses and tells Kwangsoo, “Don’t worry about it. Is she pretty?”

Kwangsoo looks toward the ceiling and tilts his head, as if he needs to really remember what she looked like.  Kwangsoo looks back at Heegun, “Very.  She’s very pretty.”  There’s a golden glow to Kwangsoo’s face; it’s a well-known fact amongst the staff that the absence of luck extends into Kwangsoo’s romance department.  If a woman so much as compliments something that he was tangentially involved in, his face turns fully red.

Heegun bounces his knee up and down as he chews in the inside of his cheek.  The aforementioned woman can’t be one of the regulars because Kwangsoo would have supplied a name for her.  On the average day, Heegun isn’t giving out too many of his business cards because that requires spending time away from his restaurant.  Also, Heegun isn’t exactly a looker; even if his heart is pure gold, there’s always a level of superficiality involved in every day meetings that he cannot overcome.

“I’ll be right out.” Heegun tells Kwangsoo. He has nothing to lose by leaving his office.  He won’t lie; he’ll be disappointed if it’s not Sungim, but he’s obligated to listen to any and all customer comments and complaints in order to keep his business alive and thriving.

“She’s at table seven,” Kwangsoo says before ducking his head once more and leaving the room.  The door somehow slams shut, and Heegun can hear a muffled cry of pain from Kwangsoo on the other side of the door.   Kwangsoo never intentionally slams doors, but it often works out that way.

Groaning as he stretches, Heegun extends his arms backward and leans back in his chair.  His much needed break will actually lead him to venture out of his office.

He leaves his suffocating office and makes his way through the sparsely populated tables.  There are a few familiar faces that he greets with a smile and warm, brief words.  The woman that Kwangsoo was referring to faces away from Heegun but toward a ridiculously handsome man.  Heegun is sure that this man’s worst day is four hundred times better than Heegun’s best day.  In that moment he hopes that it’s anyone but Sungim across from that man.  There’s not even an appropriate comparison to be made between the two men, so Heegun might die if he had to compete against that man for Sungim’s affections.

Heegun stops at table seven and clears his throat.  He can already see that it’s Sungim in the corner of his eye.  When she turns to look up at him, Heegun feels his heart jump into his throat.  Her hair is brushed into a messy ponytail, and her lips are painted a deep shade of red that compliments her skin very well.  She has a large scarf wrapped around her neck that makes her seem like a supermodel.

When their eyes meet, a smile blooms on Sungim’s face.  She raises a hand to waggle her fingers in a wave even though Heegun is right in front of her.

Heegun returns her smile, “it’s nice to you again, Ms. Chun.”

“You should call me Sungim,” she blurts out, apparently displeased with the rigidity and formality of Heegun’s words.

Heegun immediately relents to her wishes, albeit awkwardly, “Okay…Sung-Sungim.”

“Oh!” Sungim exclaims, seeming to remember that she isn’t alone at the table, “Dongwook, this is Heegun.  He let me hide here when I was running from the wedding.  Heegun, this is my best friend, Lee Dongwook.”

Heegun feels conflicted about Dongwook.  Best friend is better than anything remotely romantic.  (It would be odd if Dongwook was something romantic—Sungim just ran away from her own wedding.  Heegun doesn't think that Sungim would move that quickly.)  However, Heegun has seen more than his fair share of romantic comedies; best friends are always secretly in love with each other.

He tries not to let his mild distaste for Dongwook show by bowing ever so slightly.  He would treat Dongwook as he would any customer.  That is to say, politely. “Nice to meet you,” Heegun says, refraining from gritting his teeth.  He has absolutely no claim over anything related to Sungim, so he will have to save any hostility for a time when Sungim knowingly owns a piece of him.

Dongwook offers a smile, ready to say something else, but Sungim pushes away from the table to latch onto Heegun’s arm.  Heegun barely has time to express his surprise as she drags him away from the table and toward the kitchen.  They stop just off to the side of the swinging doors, and Sungim situates herself so that she standing chest-to-chest with an off guard Heegun.

They’re close enough for Sungim’s perfume to overpower the smell of cooking foods in the kitchen.  Magnolia invades his nostrils once more as he takes the closest look that he ever has Sungim.  He can already feel himself blushing as she smiles once again.  Her eyes flick away from Heegun’s briefly as she tucks a wild strand of hair behind her hair.  “I’d like to ask something of you.”  She breathes, “It’s going to be pretty big considering that we barely know each other.”

Sungim her lips and places a hand on her heart, “But I’ve come to consider you my new lucky charm.  Without you, I might be married right now, but here I am, a whole new Sungim.”

Heegun hears her words, but his brain processes it as something akin to a confession.  His heart has already begun thundering in anticipation.  He swallows thickly, looking straight into Sungim’s eyes with a newfound sense of courage and undue confidence, “What is that you’d like to ask of me?”

“Help me complete my bucket list.” Sungim says.  It’s a far cry from what Heegun had been hoping for.  It doesn't make the short list of possible requests, in fact it is not even on the long list for Heegun.

Heegun doesn’t betray his disappointment but, instead, lets intrigue show through a small movement in his eyebrows.  Concealing his feelings, Heegun finds, is tiresome; he’s never been a very good liar.  “Why?”

“There is only now.” Sungim says firmly, “I can’t keep waiting for tomorrow and then wake up one day to the realization that I didn’t do anything that I always I thought I would.”

Heegun simply looks at her.  It takes her a heartbeat and a half to realize that isn’t the question that he was asking.  “I don’t want you to have regrets either.”

“Okay.”  Heegun agrees quietly.  He’s willing to do things to make her happy; it’s a special bonus if he gets to spend time with her, if he gets to truly know her.

“Really?” She asks, mood brightening by ten shades.  Heegun thinks that she’s truly lovely when she smiles.  Even when she doesn’t, she’s gorgeous.  He just wants her to be happy, despite the fact that most would consider it too soon for him to have any feelings with true depth.

“Yes.”  Heegun takes a deep breath to steady his words and emotions.  “We will probably need to exchange numbers or something in order to coordinate…the completion of your bucket list.”

Sungim’s smile widens even further, and her eyes crinkle into smiles of their own.  “I’ll give you my card, and it’ll have my personal number.”

“Right.”  Heegun nods as Sungim takes a step back.

“I’ll leave it with the check.  You can go back to working on whatever.” Her teeth rake over her lips as she turns away from Heegun.  She makes her way back to where her friends sits, occasionally looking back at Heegun’s frozen figure.

Heegun has to take a few moments to collect his thoughts.  He runs through their encounter in his mind.  He’s not sure exactly what he has gotten himself into.  He knows nothing about what Sungim might want to do before it’s too late, but he has already signed up, just because she asked.

Returning to his office, he tells Kwangsoo to give him the card that Sungim is going to leave for him.  Kwangsoo doesn’t even question his request; he just nods as if it’s common practice.

Heegun settles back into his desk chair, nervous and excited.  He finds himself unable to focus on the numbers and spreadsheets on the computer screen; his toes tingle in anticipation of forging a true relationship with Sungim.

An hour of no progress on the restaurant's finances passes, and Kwangsoo raps his knuckles against his office door and semi-stealthily places Sungim’s card out of the way of Heegun’s hands but close enough to linger in his field of vision.  The minute that Kwangsoo closes the door to give his boss privacy, Heegun snatches up the card.

Sungim’s business card indicates that she belongs to an interior design agency, but the important bit of information that Heegun wants his scribbled on the back in loopy handwriting.

As Heegun adds Sungim’s number to his contact list, his heart sputters.  This is what he hopes to be the first day of the rest of his life.

a/n:

i hope it's okay.  i proofread like one and a half times so it should be intelligible.
 (i have a super bad cold, and it is stunting my writing on multiple fronts... my other stories are so neglected...)
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