“Its like we took one step forward, only to take two steps back again.” Jinhwan groaned in frustration, his hands ruffling through his hair while he spoke to Teddy on the phone. The rapper slumped back into the couch, shutting his eyes waiting for his friend to speak words of wisdom like how he normally was prone to doing. Jinhwan hated how quiet the apartment was and for the first time he wished their German Shepherd was around, even though he whined incessantly at least that was better than the silence he was now drowning in.

“You just got to be patient, man.” Teddy said into the phone and Jinhwan groaned again. He was sick and tired of being told to be patient. First he heard it from Taebin and now from Teddy. He just wanted all this fighting to be over with. He wanted to enter that honeymoon phase again with Yumi when they were all hugs and kisses and not tears and yelling. “You can’t expect Yumi to just move back in with you right away. Give her time, Jin.” More time? Hasn’t it been long enough?

Frankly speaking, the rapper was simply naïve. He wholeheartedly believed that the kiss they shared in the park was the turning point in their relationship, and although Yumi might somewhat agree with that, Jinhwan didn’t stop there. He jumped ahead in the process of reconciliation and assumed that Yumi would want to move back in and they would be happy again. However for Yumi, it was merely a moment in a series of events that would need to happen for them to even be minutely close to what they were like before.

Yumi, instead, continued to live at her sister’s place and just as her relationship with Jinhwan was on the mend, so was her relationship with Hiromi. Both worked at being able to understand each other better and although nothing returned back to the way it was, things were getting better. As for making progress with Jinhwan, for Yumi, that was proving to be much harder. The rapper had only waited one day before starting to harass her with an endless number of phone calls all asking about when she was able to move back in. Move back in? She repeated exasperatedly. Why was this man so quick to jump the gun with everything? They still had so much to work on.

It seemed though that he had gotten the hint. Either that or someone talked some sense into him, as he quickly dropped the issue of moving back in with him only to raise another one. Let’s date. Unlike the first request he proposed, Yumi liked the idea of them dating again. To try and rekindle the connection they used to have seemed appropriate as the next step to take, but a part of her felt that maybe they were moving too fast. Yes she wanted this, she wanted to feel appreciated and loved but feeling worthy wasn’t something he could help her with. That was a battle she had to fight herself. Eventually, though, Yumi gave into his attempts at wooing her and agreed to go out for dinner, but made it clear to him that it was only dinner.

“Whose car?” Yumi asked Jinhwan, eyeing the shiny black Range Rover that was parked on the sidewalk in front of Hiromi’s house before darting her eyes back toward him as he held the passenger side door open for her.

“Mine,” he smiled back at her. There was a sense of pride in the way he said the word as if saying look what I can offer you. “It was a gift from the agency for the album doing so well.”

“Mmm.” She merely hummed, nodding her head with an unreadable expression on her face as she leapt into the car. Jinhwan furrowed his eyebrows, what’s that supposed to mean? Not sure how to interpret her reaction or what to say in response to it he kept his mouth shut, gently closing the door for her and walked around to the driver’s side.

“Thanks again Yumi.” He said as he jammed the key into the ignition and put the car into gear. “You know, for going out with me and all.” It was amazing how one woman could transform a man with the reputation of being some badass macho rapper to a bumbling idiot who was beyond grateful that his wife agreed to go out to dinner with him.

“Sure,” she answered nonchalantly, her hands fumbling with the white lily he had given her when she answered the door. I should have put this in a vase or something. Truth be told, to say Yumi was anxious would be a grave understatement. She had no idea how her lack of proper replies were driving Jinhwan into a bout of insanity simply because her mind was trying to battle a tornado itself. She could safely say that she was probably more nervous about this date than she was about the first one they had so many years ago. Things were different about them, they had changed over the years. Would he still find me endearing?

Jinhwan watched from the corner of his eyes as Yumi continued to look out the tinted window. It’s not like she can see much, why hasn’t she looked at me? In reality though, Yumi wasn’t looking out the window, but instead at Jinhwan’s reflection in the window. He dressed up for their date. He never dressed up for their dates before. Not even when they had to go to court to get married – that day he was in a pair of dark jeans and only wore a blazer because Hiromi yelled at him and that too he borrowed straight off of Teddy’s back.

But today it was different.

Today, the man was dressed to impress – impress Yumi that is. He had on a pair of fitted charcoal slacks that did wonders to Yumi when her eyes darted down to glance at his long and lean thighs. His burgundy button up dress shirt had been folded three-quarters up his arm revealing his toned forearms and Yumi had a fleeting urge to caress the veins with her fingers. He’s working out again. Her eyes danced along his form, taking in the shiny silver watch she had given him as a groom’s gift and smiled. Everything about his appearance had been polished and perfected as though he were waiting forever for this one moment. And he had been.

Jinhwan clenched his jaw tightly when they reached yet another red light. The couple had been emerged in silence for five minutes already and it was driving him insane. He wanted to say something, anything, but his mind was drawing blanks as the image of what she looked like when she opened the door remained ingrained in his mind. She looked so flawlessly beautiful as the teal blue dress clung to her body like a second glove. It was amazing how she looked so effortless standing in the doorway as if she just threw on the dress, a pair of diamond studs she most likely borrowed from Hiromi and hair with her hands quickly before answering the door – the truth being far from his imagination. The poor girl had taken over two hours just figuring out what to wear, going through both her and her sister’s entire wardrobe before settling on the dress she now wore and she still wasn’t satisfied.

Her collarbone, he groaned his lips when he saw her subconsciously adjust her hair, revealing her sculpted shoulders to him. How much he wanted to just run his tongue over the hard bone, grazing his teeth gently against her soft skin. How much he just wanted her. Time, he repeated in his mind, trying to calm himself down- all that would happen in due time. “So,” he started to say, his hands tightening around the steering wheel trying to negate all the awkwardness he was victim to. “Remember that restaurant we saw on our first anniversary when we were dating?”

“The one you promised to take me to?” Yumi quipped, her tone bitter and far from what she had hoped it would sound like. She merely wanted to pose it as a confirming question but instead came out like something she held against him.

“Uh, yea.” He sounded defeated as he kept his eyes focused on the road, pressing gas right when the light turned green. “I got us a table there.”

“Oh,” she automatically said. You’ve got to be kidding me? How could she act so indifferent when she had been a nervous wreck the entire morning? “That’s nice.” Nice? Great why don’t you just tell him to turn the car around and go back, because it looks like you forgot to bring your brain along for the date.

Her hands clenched into fists, nervously encircling around the stem of the lily in her lap and Jinhwan sighed, saying a small prayer under his breath before speaking. “Look Yumi you don’t have to force yourself to be here. I know I’ve been pressuring you and stuff but,” he paused. He didn’t like the taste of the words that were at the tip of his tongue but he knew he had to say them. “But, if you don’t want to have dinner just tell me. I’ll take you back. No questions.” Stopping at another red light he turned to face her. “You do want to go to dinner with me, right? Or should I just turn around?”

The woman snapped her head in his direction, apparent shock on her face. “Yes!” She shouted out, alarming even herself with how loud her voice was as it bounced off the windows and reverberated within the interior of the car. “I mean, no. I mean-” she let out a heavy sigh trying to gather her thoughts. “Yes, I want to go out to dinner and no, I don’t think you should turn the car back around.”That is, unless we’re going back to pick my brain up.

“You sure?” He asked, needing more than just words to ensure that the possibility of them getting back together in the future wasn’t so obscure.

The left corner of her lip twitched and a diminutive sideways smile lit up her face. The action alone wasn’t going to cut it but it paralleled beautifully with how her hand reached and rested gently over his right, settling comfortably above his on the gearshift in the middle console. The heat radiating from the palm of her hand shot through him like sparks of electricity and there was suddenly no stopping him as he leaned over pressing his lips against hers. The kiss was more like a chaste peck, and it left Yumi wanting more – desiring for so much more. How could two people with so much chemistry have such a ty relationship?

Everything pretty much went uphill after their small exchange of words in the car and the fact that Yumi seemed to have found her brain again certainly made things bearable for her. There were a few hiccups along the way - the waiter getting their orders mixed up, someone claiming they had seen Jinhwan somewhere but couldn’t remember where, and even a fan glaring at Yumi claiming that Jinhwan was cheating on his wife. But it was Jinwhan’s reaction to said fan that was the cherry on the top to the otherwise flawless date. “This beautiful woman is my wife.” He said, his eyes staring back at her with so much love that Yumi’s skin erupted in tiny goose bumps.

It was like the man pulled out all the stops for the date, treating her like she was the only woman in the room. Then again he always had, hadn’t he? Yumi never had to worry about a wandering eye or another woman. She was always the only woman for him. It was her – it was always her messing things up.

“I’m sorry,” Yumi whispered shamelessly after Jinhwan walked her to the door after their date, her gaze focused on his loafers. He never wore loafers before.

“Hey,” Jinhwan scolded, his fingers instantly at her chin lifting her face up. “You of all people have no reason to apologize. I messed up too you know.”

“We both messed up.” Yumi surmised and Jinhwan couldn’t help but chuckle in agreement before pulling her into his arms. “I missed you.” The woman admitted her confession unabashed, beating the man to the punch.

Wrapping his hands in the strands of her hair, Jinhwan kissed the crown of her head. “You have no idea.”

Word count: 2117

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