I only realized that I’m actually gaping when Brenda discreetly elbows my arm. I hurriedly look away and try to act normal. I’m here for business for goodness’ sake! I should never make the Hanyang Tour staffs think that we’re not professional.

From the corner of my eyes I can see that Joongie oppa, or at least his look-alikes, has already sit down and currently engaging in a discussion with the female staff sitting next to him. He face doesn’t betray his emotions at all. He looks all serious and professional, as if his earlier surprise was only a fragment of my imagination. Or was it really?

“Ms Brenda and Ms Felicia, let me introduce you to Mr. Jay Kim, one of our most dedicated staff who will work with you directly for this project. After the signing, he will report all progress and development of the project to me directly, so you only have to report to him..” Mr. Park gestures towards Joongie oppa, I mean Mr. Jay Kim with his hand. Mr Jay only nods in acknowledgement to us.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Jay Kim,” he says curtly and offers us a polite smile..

Brenda and I introduce ourselves, and Mr. Park immediately starts the meeting. During the meeting I have to force myself to concentrate on the topic and discussion of the meeting. Millions of thoughts filled my head. Jay Kim? Kim Jaejoong? The name sounds too similar, and the person looks too alike to be passed out as coincidence. Although as far as I know Joongie oppa didn’t have any English names, but Appa did likes to call him ‘Jae’ sometimes. Is it really him then?

Even if he is, what can I say to him anyway? He’d ask about the reason why I cut all contacts with him years ago. Wait a minute, why am I even panicking about this? He doesn’t even show any sign of recognizing me, he even acts really formal and professional to us just now. Get a grip Felicia, stop daydreaming and start working!

I force myself to pay attention to the discussion ongoing. They are discussing about the various alternative tourist spot all over Korea as a new tourist destination. In turns, Brenda explains about tourist spots in Indonesia, and the unique concept of her agency; to offer cultural tourism as well as to experience local culture. In these tour packages, foreign tourists who are visiting Indonesia are given chance to be exposed to local Indonesian culture, as well as to experience it first hand.

Besides the local traditional dances, tourist are given chance to join workshops in making Indonesian food, batik – the Indonesian traditional cloth that was drawn manually using liquid wax to create patterns, and then dyed to create a finished products, and also learning traditional dances. The Hanyang Tours staffs look really interested in that particular package. Mr. Park and Donny even express their plan to visit Indonesia sometime soon to try it.

After this meeting, we will be given a week’s time to create new Korean tour packages that were customized to suit the Indonesian tourist interest. To do so, we will have to visit those tourist spots one by one to assess their suitability for Indonesian tourists. After we’re done here, the Korean team (most likely consists of Mr. Park and Donny, as they’re the one who expressed their interest earlier) will fly to Indonesia to do the same.

We sign the contract at the end of the meeting. Afterwards, Mr. Park invites us to have a dinner with the whole Hanyang team. This dinner is held in honor of our visit, and also to celebrate our upcoming cooperation.

***

“Wow, I thought they were only exaggerating in your favorite Korean dramas, turns out it were true. Koreans do like to eat a lot and are heavy drinkers. Look at those bottles!” Brenda whispered in Indonesian to me.

“Maybe they have exchange the content with water, at this rate, we’ll going to collapse really soon if they ask us to drink with them,” I whisper back in kind.

“Why are we even whispering, Bree? They can’t even speak Indonesian..”

“Oh yeah, you’re right.. I forgot that..” Brenda giggles and continues to eat.

We are having dinner in a restaurant specializing in Korean traditional food. If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Park said that this restaurant serves the authentic menus that was once served in the Palace’s kitchen for the King and the royal family. This restaurant do looks classy and authentic. The building itself is unique, an old but beautiful Hanok (Korean traditional house). The inside interior is still preserved like how it originally was in the olden days. The traditional Korean decorations placed strategically in the corners of the room also heighten the traditional oriental vibe of the restaurant.

As if it’s still not enough, this restaurant also features a live traditional music performances to entertain their guests. This time they have a beautiful young lady wearing pretty red and blue hanbok on the stage playing soft melancholic melodies on her gayageum, a Korean traditional zither-like string instruments.

We sit on the wooden floor, surrounding a long traditional table covered in numerous bowls and plates filled with plethora of Korean traditional dishes, such as ddeok galbi – the barbecued rib, bibimbab, and more Korean traditional dishes that I don’t even know the names. There are also small plates filled with various side dishes such as kimchi, ggakdugi, and also my favorite, danmuji – the yellow radish pickles.

A celebration in Korea of course wouldn’t be complete without alcohol. Tens of soju bottles littered in our tables. As Brenda said earlier, Koreans can really drink! They downed the soju as if it was only plain water. While we can’t really drink much.

I’m currently busy eating while chatting with Brenda, who sits right on my left, and Donny who sits in front of me. During dinner I try my best not to look at my right side, since Mr. Jay sits there.

“Ms Brenda, Ms Felicia let’s have a toast!,” as if he can read my thought, suddenly Mr. Park poured soju to our glasses. Damn it, we can’t really drink more if we don’t want to get drunk. But I cannot really refuse this since they would surely deem this impolite. Both Brenda and I have already got our cheeks reddened just from one glass of soju we’ve downed earlier. What should I do then?

Brenda finally grabs her glass and downed it quickly. I glared at her in envy; she has a better alcohol tolerance than me. But if I drink more, I’m sure I will pass out in no time. I’m screwed!

Smiling bitterly, I gingerly lift my hand to grab my glass. Suddenly a hand shoots in front of me and grab my glass quickly. Dumbfounded, I look on my right side and see Mr. Jay drinks the content of my glass in one-shot.

Realizing he’s got audiences, Mr. Jay stares at us confusedly, and then he stares at the glass in his hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry did I grab the wrong glass? I thought it was mine..I’m really sorry Miss..” he says apologetically and put my glass back in front of me. He then grabs his own glass and drinks it.

Huh?

Weird.. That glass was clearly located away from him, how can he mistakenly grab my glass? Could it be… Nah, it can’t be, why would he purposely drink my drink anyway? Who cares anyway, the most important thing is I no longer have to drink more soju. Seems like I’m talking too soon, from the corner of my eyes I can see Mr. Park has already raises his soju bottles again towards me, to offer me more drinks it seems. Crap!

To make sure I can escape this one, I hurriedly stand up and murmuring that I needed to go to the rest room. Unfortunately, as I stand up I’ve just realized that my legs have gone numb for being sat on for quite a long time. Since I stand up too fast, my numb legs cannot really be moved freely, and most importantly cannot support my body well. I can feel myself falling down and I close my eyes tightly to brace myself for the impact with the floor. God, please don’t let me fall on the table!

I can feel myself landing on my , weird thing is the floor I’m sitting on doesn’t feel hard at all, and I don’t feel any pain. My hand even found a sturdy purchase to brace my fall. I can hear all the conversation on our table dies down to a complete silence. I open my eyes confusedly only to found out..I’m sitting on Mr. Jay’s lap! And the sturdy thing I’m holding is actually his shoulder! God, just let me die right now..

With a red face that would put tomatoes to shame, judging from the heat that I feel on my face, I hurriedly stand up and apologize to Mr. Jay.

Looks like the humiliation still isn’t over yet. My effort to get the hell out of there as soon as I can once again was ruined by my uncooperative legs that are still protesting after being sat on for too long. Once again I nearly fall, fortunately (or unfortunately?) Mr. Jay catches my elbow and my waist just in time to prevent me falling (again).

“Are you OK Miss?” he asked worriedly.

His voice sounds really close to my ear. Too embarrassed to lift my face, I just nod while keeping my head down, trying to run away from there as soon as I can. I bet everyone’s eyes are all on me. Way to make a good impression Felicia! God, please don’t let this ruin our business deal..

Mr. Jay then helps me to stand up and still holding my arms for some moment to make sure I can really stand own my own before letting me go. After bowing in apology to everyone on our table, I hurriedly run towards the rest room.

Once I reached the toilet, I got in to one of the cubicles. I sat down on the toilet after I put the lid down. Burying my face on my hands, I groaned and try to make sense what just happened. What have I done?? Damn, I feel really embarrassed of my own clumsiness. How can I face everyone after this? And what about Mr. Jay? He must feel awkward after suddenly found a woman on his lap. Man, what should I do then? Not to mention that I’ll be working closely with him from tomorrow on.. Argh!

As much as I wanted to holed up in the rest room and never come out again, I can’t. The show must go on. After calming myself (at least I feel a little better than I was when I first came in here) I braced myself to come back to our table.

Luckily, no one says anything or even stares at me weirdly when I come back. Mr. Park only smiles and comments that I seemed pretty drunk already, so he advises me to stop drinking soju.

Huh? That’s fine with me, more than fine, I think. At least I don’t have to drink more soju and they will think that earlier I fell down because I was drunk. That way no one will think weirdly of me. Looking around, I can see that no one even pays attention to me anymore. Sigh.. now I can finally be at ease. Brenda only stares at me with laughter on her eyes, she’s pretty much used to my clumsiness, and she would already know what’s really happen.

Suddenly I hear someone says “Do you feel better now Miss?” from my right side. And of course, when I turn my head to look, I see Mr. Jay stares at me intently.

Not really sure how to answer that, I only smile and nod. Mr. Jay looks unconvinced, but said nothing and only nods. He then continues to chat with the staff sitting next to him.

Luckily no more incidents happen that night. The dinner continues smoothly, even though I caught Mr. Jay staring at me intently a few times, as if he’s closely observing me. Weird.

“Jay, please take these ladies back to their hotel. You might want to get to know each other better before we start to work tomorrow,” says Mr. Park after we finished dinner.

“Yes Sir,” he answers curtly.

“Sir, I think it would be better if I take them back, Jay’s house is in the opposite direction of their hotel. Besides, I was the one who picked them up earlier today.”

Brenda and I are a bit surprised to see Donny persistently asking to take us back to the hotel. Then Donny casts a shy glance at Brenda and he blushes a bit. Eeh? Could it be..?

“You’ll still be able to meet them tomorrow buddy, let me take them back for today ok?” Mr. Jay and Donny stare at each other, and despite still looking like he would protest, Donny finally nods.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then, have a good night Miss Brenda, you too Miss Felicia,” he says.

“Well ladies, would you please follow me, my car is over there,” Mr. Jay says while walking out of the restaurant.

The three of us walk towards a black sedan. I don’t really know much about car types and brands, but this car looks pretty new and classy. I still feel uneasy with the similarities of Mr. Jay with Joongie oppa, that’s why after Mr. Jay unlocks the car I hurriedly open the passenger’s door and sit on the back. Brenda and Mr. Jay look surprised with my action, so I pretend to lean back on the seat, and close my eyes. Pretending to be sleepy.

Thankfully, no one says anything, and then Mr. Jay opens the front door for Brenda, before he enters the car. Seems like I don’t have to pretend to be sleepy after all, since the next thing I know we’re already arrived in front of our hotel. Sigh..I still need to go to the mini-mart to buy some food.

I have a bad habit since I was a child, I need to eat something stuffing before I go to sleep. No matter if I have already have big dinner or was really full, before sleep I still need to eat something. Be it bread, cake, or even rice. If I didn’t eat anything, I’d wake up in the middle of the night because of hunger. I even got gastritis before when I forgot to do so. Lucky for me, I’m not the type of person who can gain fat easily.

Rubbing my eyes, I start to pay attention to my surrounding, and I see a mini-mart right across of our hotel. After thanking Mr. Jay, we get out of the car.

“Bree, I’m going to the mini-mart for a bit, you go ahead and get in first. I want to buy some bread, do you need anything?”

“Sometimes I really wonder what your stomach is made from; we’re just having a really big dinner. How can you still have space for bread in your stomach? Mine’s almost burst already. I’d head up first, can you buy me banana milk for breakfast tomorrow?”

***

When I came back from the mini-mart, I’m a bit surprised to find Mr. Jay standing near the hotel entrance carrying a plastic bag. When he sees me approaching, he smiles and walks toward me.

“Is there something wrong? Are you waiting for someone Mr. Jay?” I asked the moment I stand in front of him.

“Actually yes, I was waiting for someone..”

“Who?”

“You.. Long time no see, sis..”

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Author's note:

Here's the new chapter. I hope you enjoy this. As usual, comments, vote, and feedbacks are welcomed! ^^