In early spring after the mid-term, Cha Eungi and the rest of the lecturer are invited for a gala lunch Mr. Cho—the old Mr. Cho—held annually in his big house as his way to get closer to his employee. Usually in this gala event, they will announce the campus achievements and future programs that can be done in order to increase its reputation among other universities in South Korea. One of the successful projects that will be announced today is obviously Eungi’s project.

Eungi just wraps off her green project with Kyuhyun and Nara two days ago and they’re supposed to go to Copenhagen next week to present their ideas. In the past three weeks she’s been lacking sleep in order to perfect her materials and also to do her secret mission—that is to dig up Kyuhyun’s potential that she knows he has, to its maximum level. She likes the fact that he’s become more quiet near Eungi and he seems like one of those kid that follows her instructions and suggestions very well, compare to Hwang Nara that’s too focal with her opinion that sometimes lead to confusion for their group of three.

Before the lunch begins, Mr. Cho gives his speech about the importance of giving our best to the country and one of the ways to do it is by doing the best in education. The gala continues with the actual lunch and a live performance from the campus orchestra group, this is the part she hates the most because as expected, the gala lunch is full of rubbish for her taste.

She hates hanging around the people she barely knows, talking about things that aren’t necessary to discuss, having people try to impress her, receiving a lot of name cards that she knows she’s gonna toss to her stack later on, and the thing she hates the most from this kind of event is clearly to pretend to enjoy everything. She’s stuck in the round table with eight other people that mostly try to talk about their married life and kids. All invitation allows a plus-one to come along, bus since she really has nobody to invite to she came alone and got herself stuck in between four other couples.

She sits quietly during the appetizer and the first course, however after the main course, Eungi decided to separate herself from her table once one of the man starts to talk about politics and government, she just can’t take it anymore and she need some space for herself simply just to breath and calm herself.

Eungi walks out of the main room to the patio right outside, she figures she’ll still be able to pay attention to what’s going on inside without being caved in. She stroll around to look for a perfect spot for her to rest her mind and decided to sit on a park bench not far away from the patio.

“I thought I won’t see you today.” A deep voice breaks her daydream.

Eungi turns her head and force a smile on her face, she knows the owner of that voice. After working continuously with him in the past three weeks, it’s something she has become accustomed to.

“Should be a nice break for me, don’t you think?” She’d prefer to be left alone but she slide to her right anyway to let him sit next to her.

His mouth opens up a little bit once he studies her appearance today. Eungi is wearing flowery peep-shoulder dress that brings out the radiance of her skin, she pulls her hair up into a ponytail showing off her long and lean neckline that makes his imagination runs a little wild and he can’t keep his gaze from her long legs that’s now showing under her flare dress, especially since she wraps her beautiful feet with a pair of heels that makes her legs look even longer.

*pict belongs to Park Seul

He’s tries his best to hide the adoration in his eyes because he doesn’t want her to notice how different his behavior is whenever he’s near her. In the first day they met Cho Kyuhyun was certain that Cha Eungi was just a young smart that happened to be his new professor, only weeks later he really admit that she’s actually really brilliant and he begins to respect her for the way she treats him. Today is the first time Kyuhyun can actually see how beautiful the woman she is.

 “Are you running away from something? The gala’s inside.” Kyuhyun rounds the bench and sits next to her left.

 “I’m the one who should ask you that question, Kyuhyun-ssi. It’s lectures only event.”

“You’re in my father’s house, noona. And please, I think we’ve passed the formality, just call me by my name.” He hands Eungi a tall and narrow glass contains bubbly liquid inside. “Champagne?”

Eungi shakes her head. “Nah, the sun is still up and it’s one of the events where I need to be sober all the time.”

“Why? You’re a bad drunkard?”

Eungi scoffs, “I’m a functioning alcoholic if I may say. I just don’t want people see me, you know, getting drunk.”

“Ahh.. Still try to maintain the good image.”

Eungi only lifts her eyebrows. “So, aren’t you supposed to be inside?”

Kyuhyun rolls his eyes, “Having those people kissing my just to look good in front of my dad, please. I’d rather sit here with you.”

“It’s must be sickening for you, to have those people around you without knowing which one that you can actually trust.” She pouts realizing the words she said aren’t just address to Kyuhyun alone, it’s how people treat her also.

“I chose not to trust anyone of them.” He takes a sip of the champagne.

Eungi turns her head to him to get a closer look, “Aahh.. Now I begin to understand why you’re so distant..”

“Aish, don’t even try to analyze me. I don’t want to be your next research subject.” He takes his gaze away from her.

“Sorry.” She grins, “Force of habit.”

“By the way, it’s a ‘plus-one’ invite party and I can’t help to notice that you’re alone. Where’s your fiancé?” He asks her nonchalantly.

Honestly, he can’t stop thinking about it since he knew that she’s engaged. If it’s any other girls, he’d probably just let it slide and go for his next target, but he can’t just let the matter go with this one.

She’s a bit taken aback by his question, she knows she stupidly mentioned about Siwon few days ago to him but she never thought he’ll remember that. That night when she talked to him about Siwon was one of the nights when she missed him badly, one of those times when everything around her seems to remind her about him, and one of those moment when she feels like she needs to share a little bit of her pain to release the pressure in her head.

“He.. can’t come.” She looks down to her feet and keeps her gaze down.

Kyuhyun might be ignorant, but he clearly noticed how the shine in her eyes instantly darkens. Cha Eungi avoids eye contact with him and keeps her body language at close, as if she wishes the topic never came out.

The awkwardness between them quickly disturbed by the sudden silence in the air when the orchestra stops playing the music and the MC begins to talk—signing the lunch session has ended and they should continue with the next event.

“We should go inside, they’ll call our name.” Kyuhyun gets up from his seat and offer his hand to help Eungi to rise—which she ignores.

“It’s about time, let’s get it over with so I can go home quicker.” She mumbles beside him as they walk together toward the main room.

“Are you sure about not having a little bit of alcohol? It calms you down.” He pushes his glass to her.

“No, I’ll drink a bunch afterwards.” She smirks and continues her steps.

“Ladies and gentlemen, now I will announce to you some of the amazing achievement our campus receive counting from the last semester.” The MC begins his announcement. “As we know, our student choir is still competing in Austria as we speak and the last news we receive is they’re in the top three, so.. Fingers crossed.” He makes the gesture of linking his fore finger and middle finger together.

Eungi wants to enter the room but the guards can’t let her enter during announcement, so she waits patiently by the door frame with Kyuhyun beside her. Even when they try to explain that their name is about to be called out, the guards still demand them to wait—until further notice.

“The next achievement is our debate team. They won the second prize in the international competition held in London last December.” He claps his hands as a way to encourage the audience to clap along, “And let’s not forget about the achievement our lectures get.”

The room becomes silence again.

“I’m honor to announce that our very own professor that collaborated with two of our student, has been invited to a world summit in Copenhagen to present their original ideas on how to safe our planet. I’m sure you’re all familiar with this person, since this person continuously making big impact not only to our campus reputation but also to our mother earth.”

Eungi and Kyuhyun pla