*Abeonim = father-in-law, a term to call a close friend's father

*son-nim = customer

“I love her.”

She froze. Everything seemed to leave her body. She couldn’t process anything. Her mind was blank, completely blank. Only his voice, saying that he loved her, kept repeating inside her mind like a broken tape. She couldn’t even believe her own ears. ‘Did I hear it right? He … loves me? Is it even possible?’ Thoughts of things immediately came rushing into her mind once she regained her sense back. She took a step back slowly, being careful to not make any noise. And without realizing, she had taken big steps to get back to where the guests were as soon as she could. She tried to calm herself down and regain her composure back but it turned to no avail. His unintended confession had taken her aback and she had left before he continued to talk more.

She didn’t want to admit that she was afraid but indeed, she was scared, scared that the continuation of his words would break down her walls around him completely. Sure, she had lowered down her walls to him but not completely. She couldn’t afford that, not when she was in an engagement with Youngbae.

His confession was too much for her to take. Everything happening on that day had been too much for her to take. But being her, she had to be able to handle everything. Even little things like these which overwhelmed her.

She inhaled an amount of breath as she approached her waiting father, trying to calm herself down, trying to calm her wildly beating heart. It was true that she was confused, she was taken aback, yet even so, she was more confused with the butterflies inside her stomach added up with her wild heartbeat. Those foreign feelings confused her mind but not her heart. It seemed like her heart knew everything that her mind, her rationality, couldn’t process yet. Those foreign feelings didn’t bother her heart. But being the usual cold heiress she was, she always decided everything by her rational mind, not her feelings. And this time to her, wasn’t much a difference. She needed to think, to process everything with the rational mind.

With one deep sigh, she braced herself and directly approached her father. She had to appear well composed, she told herself again and again. “Abeoji,” she nodded as a polite greeting. “Where’s your fiancé? I told him to call you but now, where is he?” Her father asked in his usual flat tone. “He’s talking with his friend. He should be here soon,” she replied in a no less flat tone. True enough, Youngbae came inside and approached them a minute later. “Abeonim*,” he nodded, just like what she had done earlier. Her father only nodded as a response before taking the microphone and facing the guests.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank all of you once again for taking your precious time to give blessings to the engagement of my daughter, Park Sandara, and Dong Youngbae. Now if you excuse us,” her father slightly bowed at the guests before leaving. She and Youngbae did the same before following her father, leaving the guests who were leaving one by one.

She threw herself onto the bed as soon as she reached her bedroom without bothering to change her dress into more comfortable clothes. Huffing, she stared at the ceiling blankly before putting an arm over her eyes. She was tired physically and mentally, and she was confused emotionally. She tried to clear her mind but in the end, her mind always brought her back to his images, their little memories together, and lastly, his unintended confession. She straightened up abruptly and strode towards the bathroom to have a warm and soothing bath, hoping that it could help her to relax and sort out her mind.

Coming out of the bathroom freshly showered, she laid back down on her bed. She closed her eyes, trying to sleep. Her eyes were begging her to get some sleep yet she kept tossing around her bed as sleep couldn’t reach her. She yawned every now and then yet she still couldn’t fall asleep. Eventually, she just laid down with her eyes closed, sighing in every minutes passed.

On her bedside table, her phone beeped out of the blue, indicating a new text messaged had been received. She furrowed her eyebrows while looking at the hanging clock on the wall. It was late already, who in the world would text her at that kind of time? Frowning, she hastily took her phone and opened the received text message.

To: Dara

From: Jiyong

Dara-ya, are you asleep already? Today must be tiring for you~ Anyway, sleep tight and have a nice dream. Perhaps, dream about me? Kk~ Don’t bother to reply, I know you’re tired. I just wanna say goodnight ^^

Unknowingly, a smile had made its appearance on her lips. Still smiling, she locked her phone screen and put it back on her bedside table. ‘Kwon Jiyong, seriously, what are you doing to me? What are you doing to my flat and well composed life?’ She nestled her head on the pillow with her smile never leaving her lips. She closed her eyes again and sleep took over her almost immediately. After all, it only took a single goodnight message from him for dreamland to fetch her, his goodnight was just like her sleeping pills.

***

Days turned into weeks. Spring was almost over unknowingly and summer was ready to greet everyone and she was even busier than ever. With the soon arrival of summer, the Park Empire released numerous kinds of summer apparels. She had to attend various meetings either with the shareholders, the investors, the marketing director, the creative director, the public relation director, the designers or even the models for the advertisements. Her schedules were never free, her schedules had always been tight. Meetings and meetings had been her daily schedule.

She threw her files onto the table as she threw herself onto the couch. She closed her eyes and furrowed her eyebrows as she massaged her aching temples and sore nape. She had just finished another meeting with the creative director and the designers for the nth time. After numerous meetings, they had finally finalized everything as the products were set to be released in the following month, the exact time when summer would arrive. She opened her eyes to look at her work table full of scattered paperwork. She sighed and approached her table to tidy the paperwork. “It’s another long day,” she mumbled.

Grabbing her purse, she fished out her phone which had been in silence mode since that morning. Her plain phone screen greeted her with a notice of missed calls and new text message. ‘Why did he call me during office hours?’ She thought.

Missed Call(s)

Jiyong (5)

1 New Text Message

Jiyong

To: Dara

From: Jiyong

Are you busy? I have something to tell you. I’m at the parking lot now. I’ll be waiting for you, meet me? ^^

She checked the received time of the messaged and it showed that the message was received around an hour earlier. Frantically, she rummaged her purse to see if she left anything before dashing out of her office. She stopped momentarily at her secretary’s desk. “Ms. Lee, I’m off. You may be dismissed.” She didn’t even give a chance for Chaerin to reply as she entered the pri