*pict belongs to Park Seul

Kyuhyun forces himself to get out of his bed no matter how powerless he feels today. Seems like the extreme weather finally took its toll on his immune system and the first sign of his fever starts from his runny nose he experiences this morning. He ignores the heaviness in his head and swallow down some aspirins for a quick remedy before he continues to prepare himself to go to his class that Friday. He’s going to have a meeting with her this afternoon and uses that as his drive to get out from his apartment and drag himself to his class.

When he meets her in the same café the after class, Cha Eungi was already busy arguing in Dutch to somebody in her phone. Kyuhyun walks towards the bar and order himself a cup of coffee to Vincent and once again he observes the Dutch guy in front of him intensely. Is his job really just waiting table in a café? If that’s what he does, Kyuhyun doesn’t have to worry about his position in Eungi’s eyes, at least that’s the thought he keeps in his mind to avoid any kind of discomfort during today’s meeting.

“Good afternoon! You’re meeting with Cha, right? She told me earlier and she’s in that table over there.” He points to Eungi, “I’ll deliver to your table soon.” The Dutch man greets him kindly before he prepares the order.

Cha? Is that the way he calls her? is that some kind of cute lover name or what? He tries to swallow his annoyance but his mind once again fills with unnecessary questions about their relationship while he tries to stick to his positive thought.

He approaches her table, takes off his coat before he sits across her. Eungi gives him a quick nod while pointing to her phone, signs him to wait until she’s finish arguing with whoever it is. Kyuhyun rests his back to the chair behind him and takes his waiting time to studies her appearance. He notices she’s taking some effort to put on some make-up today, she lets her hair falls on her shoulder naturally, and Kyuhyun can smell her sweet scent from his distance. He smiles a little with the thought that she probably did it to impress him, but his happy thought quickly erased after he sees what she’s wearing. In this cold and windy weather, she only covers herself with a thick sweater and dared to wear an above the knee dress without even trying to cover up her legs. If she plans to reminds him on what he missed from her, then she succeeded but Kyuhyun really didn’t need that kind of show to remembers how much he missed her—at least not during this cold weather.

Minutes later Eungi finishes with her call and at the same time Vincent also delivers his drink into their table. Kyuhyun politely thank him and takes his glass closer to him, he expects Vincent to leave soon, but seems like he’s about to get disappointed one more time once the Dutch guy takes a chair next to Eungi and lets himself sit together with them.

Eungi takes a gulp of her latte before she introduces both men, “Vincent, this is my student Kyuhyun and this is Vincent my former classmate that apparently had done some legal cases in his work as a professional architect before.”

Kyuhyun only focus on the term ‘former classmate’ and ignore the rest.

Vincent smiles to Kyuhyun and begins talking, “She told me about your stolen work and consulted me since I used to experience something similar in the beginning of my career.”

Kyuhyun takes his gaze away from Vincent to Eungi and he feels his face gets hotter when he sees her biting her lips nervously while gathering some papers in her hands.

“I consulted Professor Van Wijk last night and he didn’t say that it’s impossible...” She begins to explain to Kyuhyun.

“But it won’t be easy either, schat. Especially since the journal already published.” Vincent cut her words before she even finished explaining her plan.

“Will you let her finishes her words before you interrupt her?” Kyuhyun shoots Vincent with a sharp look. He already hates the fact that he’s sitting in between them and he’s more annoyed when the Dutch guy called her ‘schat’ again.

Vincent lifts his hands and turns his head to Eungi to let her continue talking.

“I see your point, Vince. The journal already published and I have more legal problems to encounter, that means more people will get sued and more paper works to deal with. But this guy had stolen my work back then and I never thought he’d be this low to repeat his mistake for the second time.” She takes a piece of paper and show it to Vincent, “I did my research on how to proceed with intellectual property rights claim and all I need to prepare are the evidence and some testimonies.”

“So you’ll tell the international board that you let him go once and now you’re suing him for his second offence?” Vincent scoffs, “I don’t need to sit in law school to know the first argument they’ll throw at you—why now? Why you didn’t proceed with the court in the first offence?”

“I had my reason back then.” Eungi clears and avoids Kyuhyun’s gaze. “But I can’t let this go.”

“Do you want to hear the second defense?” Vincent smiles and continues talking, “Your student work are indeed under the legal property of the campus. We all know that our research belongs to the campus or facility where we’re doing it. He’s doing his final project and he asked this Hwang guy to approve his letter of recommendation through his essay—for all I know, Mr. Hwang gets all the credits as counselor and he’s allowed to do whatever he wants with the paper.”

“Without his consent!” Eungi points to Kyuhyun while glaring at Vincent with clear emotion in her eyes.

Kyuhyun fells like he’s currently watching a really interesting badminton game as he turns his gaze from Eungi to Vincent every time they switch argument. He always enjoys the sight of Eungi looking smart whenever she delivers her defenses, it makes her looks more desirable in his eyes. Another reason he’s enjoying the debate is because he’s aware that Eungi is defending him towards the guy that’s now begin to look flustered from arguing with the witty woman next to him.

“Look Cha, I know this might annoy you so much but you missed your first chance to sue him and to be honest, your claims this time aren’t as strong as the first one. At least if you sue him back then, you had the full rights of your work since you weren’t tied down to any institution back then.” Vincent turns his seat to Eungi and places his hands on both of her shoulders, “I’ll help you as far as I could, I just don’t want you to get disappointed in the end and I have to be the one that breaks it down for you, the court journey for this matter will be long and exhausting.”

Kyuhyun clears his throat to vindicate his presence in the room to them while he stares sharply to Vincent’s hand that’s on her shoulders.

Eungi glances at him and her face blushes just by seeing the sharp and cynical expression on his face. She never planned to this way but she can’t help not to feel delighted seeing him being affected by a casual gesture her friend did to her.

“In your opinion,” Eungi swifts her seating so Vincent takes his hands away from her, “What’s the best way for me to proceed with this? what kind of claim I should write down? And which attorney I should call?”

Vincent’s attention is diverted by the rings of his phone, he takes a look into his message, reads it and returns to their talk. “Shoot! I have to leave very soon, but I’ll give you his card.” he gets up from his chair and walks towards the bar.

Kyuhyun takes a sip of his coffee while staring blankly to Vincent’s empty seat, “Is he your boyfriend?” He’s almost whispering but Eungi can clearly hears what he said.

“He’s a married man.”

“Wow, and he called you ‘schat’? does his wife know that?” he still tries to maintain his cool no matter how ridiculous he sounds right now.

Eungi lifts her shoulder, “He was my close friend, we were in the same class during our master degree and that’s just how he addresses me from back then. And yes, she knows.”

“So he’s not just a barista?”

Eungi scoffs, “This café is his passion and upstairs is his consultant office. Why am I explaining these to you?”

“Keunyang.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “He seems too touchy.”

Eungi was ready to argue with him but Vincent returns to their table with a little business card in his hand. “This is the contact of my attorney, he’s specialized in intellectual property rights and you can come to his office in Utrecht if you want. Please listen to me Cha, you’re fighting a battle without enough weapon in your hands. I don’t mean to discourage you, but this can turn ugly and in the end you just spend a lot of money or worse you’ll get sued in return. Please learn your facts first before you really proceed with this matter.”

She takes the card from him and put it in the pile of papers she has with her. “Appreciate it Vince, I won’t give up on this.”

“Kyuhyun, I know you’re annoyed with the fact that your work being stolen without your consent, but please convince this lovely lady not to take any rough decision based only on her vengeance.” Vincent talks confidently to Kyuhyun. “The legal world is a whole different level from our area of expertise and they play dirty most of the time, I’m just preventing both of you from losing even more than a paper.”

“It’s not just a paper Vince.” Eungi presses her tone to affirm her case.

“I’ll talk to her more later.” Kyuhyun closes their conversation before Eungi begins to bombard Vincent one more time.

“I'll excuse myself since I have to pick up my daughter, the door will automatically lock from the outside so just leave once you’re finish with your business, okay? See you when I see you, schat.” Vincent gets up and kisses her check three times, “Pleasure to meet you Kyuhyun