Chapter 7

After I regained some sense of liveliness, I shoved his weight off of me and stood, brushing the dirt from my freshly ironed clothes. I didn't bother to help him to his feet due to my embarrassment from the situation I wished never happened. I hated it with every bone in my body. If I could've turned back time, I would've never allowed that in my schedule and just let time tick as the memory wouldn't have any familiarity.

"At least tell me your name," Daehyun spoke behind me. His voice was strained from who knows what. He must've disdained this tiny accident as well. That's all it was to me, a tiny accident that is bond never to occur ever again for as long as I live. Not even in the after life I would give him permission to lay a single brush of his skin against mine.

"I have to go to work," I murmured, hopefully he couldn't hear any word I was saying so he would backfire with something like, "Can I help?"

I jogged half of the way to work or until my legs grew weary and limp from exhaustion. The establishment had to be aged over thirty-years or at least before I was born, maybe long before. There were untrimmed bushes and trees that swayed their branched gracefully in the slight breeze; stirring a few of it's leaves.

"Yoo Sang, you have a report of an abused Corgi pup across town. It's immediate, the neighbors are worrying," spoke my coworker. I never picked up his name because of the small span of time I had to waste here, I'm usually the one completing the rescues instead of the paperwork. I hated that too. Paper, paperwork, trash, things that interfered with the peace and wholeness of nature. Call me a nature freak or tree hugger but don't pluck the leaves of a tree that provides us with more than we could request for; food and air that we always seem to take for granted.

My eyes skimmed over the metal plate that displayed his name and read Youngjae. His name sound foreign in my mind, maybe I've spent a plethora of my life in America for too long. I should visit my past, parents, friends that decided to stay settled and undisturbed with the total difference of cultures in Korea. The country seemed to shrink in size ever time I compared it with the United States.

"Thank you Youngjae. May you clock me in please," I spoke in my best English pronunciation that I've been practicing on. "I'll see you-"

"Yoo Sang-ah, you know I'm Korean right?" Youngjae's sudden swap of languages caught me off guard. He then continued, "I thought the name would be an eye catcher but I guess not so much."

"Sorry but you know how I've been-"

"Been busy, yes. Seems like all of time. Why don't we get some coffee? To get to know each other as.. coworkers."

A giddy feeling rose in the bottom of my heart. I've never been asked out on a date ever besides the one time where my ex-boyfriend poured ice cream on me to prove nothing. I wasn't cheating on him but he thought otherwise and couldn't trust his once loving and caring affectionate girlfriend that would've told him anything in a heartbeat.

"Sure, I'd love that," I beamed down on him who stared with now crescent eyes. "I'll see you tonight."

Forgetting that a helpless Corgi was crying for someone's attention to rescue them from their owner who thought they were in the perfect conditions. News flash, people like don't deserve to precious animals when they were just for amusement to them. They could've rotten in a metal cage, behind bars for the rest of their lives if our crew and others weren't in existence.

Four other crew members that I've worked with for a plethora of years boarded the truck as well. I could've known their names on the top of my head if they weren't blurred in my memories.

"Yoo Sang, what's the report?" A girl across of my inquired. Her hair was pitch black like night, her facial features soft and innocent that made her appear doll-like.

"An abused Corgi on the east side of town." I didn't intend to sound or come off cold or very straightforward but that's the way it fell out.