“……Sadly, our time is coming to an end. Already? Yes, already. I hope everyone enjoyed tonight’s session of Radio Star Talk. Also, please have a wonderful night.”

“Everyone, please have a joyous night. Bye, bye.”

“Have the most fantastical night, guy! Ha ha!”

Leaning forward to get closer to the speaker, I smiled and read my lines from the place cards lain beside my arm. Even with my eyes trained on the words, my thoughts were somewhere far away. Even with my mouth open and words spilling out with my normal tone, inside I was in a frenzy. It was hard, all in all, to be doing something while pretending not be doing something else at the same time. I had thought I mastered the skill already, but I was deadly wrong.

“Seohyun?” Eunhyuk oppa tapped me gently on my arm. “Um, we’re done.”

“Neh?” I looked up to see a empty room and the staffs hurrying around to clear up the equipments. “Oh, oh sorry.” I shaked my head in disapproval of my own embarassing action, or lack of actions that is. Grabbing my coat, I made a move to walk over to the staff area to express my gratitude for their hardwork.

“Thank you, guy.” I bowed with my palms clasped together. “You worked hard today.”

“Hey, do you need me to fetch you back?” Eunhyuk oppa kindly offered. He waved his cars keys cheekily at me. The contact of the keys creating a clinking sound.

If I take up his offer now all of my indecision would be wipe clean. There would only be one destination for my schedule-free time tonight then: home. I glanced at the clock. Ah, I could still make it…..

I shaked my head before I even registered what this decision would mean. “It’s fine.” I left it at that.

“Alright then.” He chuckled and gave me a weird smile like he knew something that I didn’t, and left.

I waved gently before grabbing my coat and stepping out of the MBC building.

Walking out in public wasn’t something I was used to. But it had became more of the norm for me now than it used to be in the past. Yet, I still somehow caught myself looking around, watching for trailing shadows or listening for footsteps that coordinates my own. It is one of the traits you would usually find in a celebrity, naturally developed through time and switched on at the most accurate timings. It was scary too, this instint of ours: self-preservation?

I caught myself staring at mirrors more than I did looking behind my own back for stalkers. Not solely mirrors though, but anything that gives me a good look of myself. Shop’s display windows, reflective cars………

Did my hair look messy? Ahh, it’s flying all around. Ottoke?

Arh, my dress isn’t iron properly. It’s all rumpled…..

I hope the weird smell from the cab is gone…..

The sudden appearance of the hidden depths of my vainness had me distracted and I almost walk pass the restaurant. I backtracked a few steps to stand before the wooden glassed-door that leads to the Little Café Restaurant. I reached for the doorknob, the metal biting cold to my fingers, but quickly retracted my hand. I was too nervous.

My heartbeat was going too fast for it to be healthy.

I turned my back on the door and just stood there. Get a hold of yourself! I clapped my cheeks a few time, urging it to somehow convince myself to calm down. Looking across the small pavement separating the shop fronts to the traffic road, I noticed my own reflection, pale and large, against the black of a car’s side window.

I looked sick. I think I’m going to be sick.

Chipmunk. Ahhh, my cheeks had turned red!

I gave myself another 3 seconds to do a calming deep breath before I stepped in. I was immediately welcomed into the familiar ambience of the restaurant. Low wood-beamed ceilings, orange lantern-shaped lights hanging overhead with its warm yellow glow, boardwalk wood flooring…….it was both cozy and nostalagic for me. I took a few steps forwards, going deeper into the restaurant but pause before a certain corner table.

Ah…..it’s here.

“Hyun-ah.”

His voice was so soft that it blended into the low, mellow voice coming out from the speaker with it’s soothing bowed sound of double basses. I didn’t looked up, temporarily distracted with cutting up my steak into the right portions. It was a bit hard, and my arms felt stiff from positioning it at the right angle to saw the annoying meat.

A loud laugh sounded in the air, loud enough to be heard over the jazzy music this time.

I looked up to see a wide grin on Yong oppa’s face which slowly turned into a very attractive boyish smile under my stare.

“Wae?” My voice came out sounding not quite like my own. Whiny and unsure.

He said nothing, the smile seemed plastered permanently on his face. And right at that moment, I can’t remember if there was ever a time that it wasn’t there. He moved his arms that were positioned against the edge of the table earlier to stretch out and grab the plate with the unsucessfully chopped meat on it.

I started to protest but he placed his own plate in the now empty space on the table before I could. On the plate, the steak was already chopped to ideal portions, irregular shaped but still edible, messily coated with sauce from the plate.

I suddenly have this indescribable feeling in the pit of my stomach as I stare at the person in front of me. All blue shirt, rugged jeans, matted brown hair and everything.

“Better?” He looked back at me, unaffected. His fingers a tent under his chin as he used that as support to stare at me, finger to finger. There was something playing in his eyes, amusement.

I ducked my head at stare at the messy masterpiece of a steak under me. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Neh?” I looked up from the table, my eyes hazy with thoughts. There was a young waitress looking at me curiously. Her hands were doing a ‘this way’ gesture, indicating a direction further into the restaurant.

“Joo Hyun-sshi, right?” She asked politely. Her arms still erect in the awkward gesture.

I nodded my head a few times, harder than was needed. “Sorry.”

She shaked her head with a small laugh, “It’s alright. He’s already here.”

He.

Little Café Restaurant.

Come.

11 P.M

 I digged my arms into the side pocket of my cream-coloured coat. Holding tightly onto the phone there with the text message there in my inbox; the reason I am here right now. Quietly, with me trailing behind the waitress lady, we climbed up a three flight of stairs that led up to a more secluded part of the restaurant, a slightly higher floor on the ground like a wider piano platform. And that was when I realized the whole place, the entire restaurant was actually empty. Customer-free. No staffs even, well at least there isn’t one managing the counter. The place was as quiet as sleep!

“Here.”

I thanked her with a small nod and scanned the small area. It had the same interior as the rest of the place, made to let people indulge in a homey, cozy atmosphere with its assorted coloured pillows and dangling warm lights. The only different was: the only other customer here was sleeping at a table here.

All at once the nerves that should I thought I already shaked off returned, tenfold.

I pulled out the chair as gently as I could but seemingly not gentle enough because the next second, the head that was laying peacefully just a moment ago, moved to show that striking face under the mop of raven hair.

He looked up sleepy eyes with a hint of annoyance at the noise before his gaze focused on me. And his lips slowly shape itself into a crooked smile.

“You’re late.”

With the way he say it, it was like we were in a normal situation-boyfriend girlfriend meeting up for a rendezvous at the usual restaurat, at the usual spot they use all the time- like it was ‘usual’ for us. Me, coming late to our ‘usual’ restaurant which we have our ‘usual’ dates at night while he, waits for me tiredly at the ‘usual’ spot like he usually do. Usually. Usual, usual-ness. It hurt, like a small ant bite’s pain that isn’t easily noticeable unless you really think about it.

Because it was true. All of this.

This was our ‘usual’ and it was usual that they come here at night, for a coffee, a cake, nothing. Just talk. Sit here or there, he holding my hand like it meant the world, like it was solid prove that we were what we were. Then.

In the past.

Before cowardness and insecurities broke everything that was already ever so fragile.

“Annyeong, Yong.” I said to him and sat down. 

*I couldn't find anything that pictured the restaurant design that I had in mind. But it had the feeling of that picture, especially with the lamps and everything......

This was suppose to be a longer chapter but I'm lazy and eager to go back to Itazura Na Kiss (Love in Tokyo) >.