“Mianhae…”

Bomi had returned with a giant stack of napkins and was busy opening up her water bottle to wet some of them. Other than the fact that this was utterly embarrassing, Bomi was thoroughly upset for unintentionally sabotaging Eunji’s date. Even in her worst nightmare, Bomi couldn’t have imagined this happening to her… but lo and behold, of course it happened to her…

Ilhoon winced as Bomi brought the napkin to his tender nose and she looked up at him with sad eyes, scared that she was only making things worse. He smiled before muttering “gwenchana”, and Bomi continued to dab at the blood on his face (using an even lighter touch than before).

“Uhh… well…” The atmosphere had been dampened, and Ilhoon was eager to make Bomi realize that this whole thing was completely normal… okay, not normal because Ilhoon couldn’t recall just about any time that something like this had happened before… but… it definitely wasn’t a deal-breaker (if he was Minhyuk, that is… and to be honest, knowing his best friend, it wouldn’t be for him either).

He scratched his eyebrow nervously, hoping that he could come up with a funny or witty remark that was also just a tad debonair to say... anything that could iron out the creases that had appeared on her forehead. Bomi seemed like she was in her own little world though, as she gathered up all of the soiled napkins and put the cap back on the water bottle.

‘Jeez Bomi… you literally had one job.’ She pouted to herself, feeling sorry for the poor guy that was stuck with her today. ‘You at dating, Yoon Bomi!’

“Well…” the brunette boy started off again with an encouraging smile and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “At least that wasn’t the first time you knocked me down...”

“……….”

“……………”

“……………………”

The crickets chirped again… Ilhoon’s failure of an attempt at brightening up the situation was met only with a deafening silence as Bomi's jaw dropped open. It really was about time that Ilhoon’s lack of experience had caught up with him on this date, since at least half of the participants was already flubbing so much. 

“T-that is…” Ilhoon stumbled dangerously over his words, glancing back and forth from the ground to the girl in front of him.

“I-I um… I did not mean…” He was officially a deer in the headlights after having unwittingly rubbed salt in her wounds.

“WAIT THERE!” an angry Bomi shouted at him, storming away towards the middle of the park.

“AND DON’T FOLLOW ME!!” She called behind her as she heard him scrambling in the grass to get up.

“ *sigh*… Great job salvaging that one, you doofus.” Ilhoon chided himself for making her mad as he watched her leave.

Re-locating to the nearest bench, he could do nothing but sulk in his sorrows and as Ilhoon put his head in his hands, one lone thought reverberated throughout his mind.

‘I should not have said that…’

‘Everyone is staring… like, EVERYONE in the café is staring…’

That was all a slack-jawed Minhyuk could think as he gawked at the cute (and late-for-work!) waitress who was also staring at him. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them back up to realize that yes… she was still standing there… and yes… that all really did happen.

“Mwo…” He stammered, still in a state of shock and embarrassment. “Mwo-mworago?!”

“Mianhae… I said,” Eunji began with a much quieter voice. “What’s got you acting like a love-sick pabo…?”

She was a brave one, there was no doubt about that… regardless, Eunji felt sorry for the poor guy. Aside from the fact that he was mulling over some issues with a girl (OR a guy… she didn’t wanna judge…), their abrupt encounter made him wildly uncomfortable. I mean, she could practically feel waves and waves of humiliation flying off the dude. It was apparent that he wasn’t used to such loud displays whether it was accidental on Eunji’s part or not.

“Umm… Mianhae again.” Eunji murmured. “For… y’know… being loud and making you uneasy.”

Minhyuk looked down at the table and twisted a paper straw wrapper between his fingers. Here he had been, minding his own business… and then this… madwoman comes and disturbs everything!

‘And she didn’t even bring me a new Caramel Macchiato!!! I mean, I’ve literally only been here for…’ He checked the time on his phone. ‘five hours……….. FIVE HOURS?!’

Okay… so maybe Minhyuk had overstayed his welcome a tiny bit, despite his attempts to not seem like a loiterer… and maybe this waitress did have a reason to worry about the lonely antisocial weirdo patron who had nothing to do on a Friday afternoon… His annoyance at the situation was oh-so-slowly replaced with understanding and a mild gratefulness that her gestures were a nice sentiment (although super brash and uncalled for…). Also, Minhyuk could tell that she was truly apologetic regarding the way she went about it (and he wasn’t even sure if she meant to do that…).

Eunji continued to stand there watching the boy fumble with the wrapper, waiting for any kind of response or acknowledgement of her words. She cast her eyes towards the floor and bit her lip impatiently.

Depending on how she answered his next question… well, that would determine for Minhyuk if her intentions were truly noble, or whether she was just trying to kick him out for the sake of the café’s business (which he couldn’t blame her for either).

“Do you have time to talk?” He asked nervously. “If so… I really need some advice… on this person I like…”

Her head snapped up to look at him, and she immediately gave a bright smile after realizing that he wasn’t mad or annoyed anymore about what had happened.

“Yeah!” Eunji nodded at him, glad that she could not only help someone, but also distract herself from the soulmate that she simultaneously wanted to meet… and didn’t want to meet.

“But you’re gonna have to wait around ten minutes… Is that cool??”

“Uh huh, fine by me.” Minhyuk smiled back at her, surprised that she was willing to lend an ear. “You really should learn to come on time… then you wouldn’t have to stay over.”

“Yaaa, pabo…” She pouted at him as he laughed. “It was only by like… seven minutes…”

Eunji didn’t want to put too much importance on this, but she realized that this random customer had actually noticed her arrival, to the point where he even knew that she was late. She pushed this piece of information aside though, for fear that a small superficial crush would form on this handsome stranger…

‘You have a soulmate, Eunji! Just because you haven’t met him yet doesn’t mean that you can have a crush on someone only because they’re right in front of you!!’ She gave herself a mental pinch on the arm and once again pushed it all to the back of her mind.

“OKAY!!!” The cute waitress shrieked making Minhyuk flinch. “I’m gonna be your Cupid, and we’re going to get you your girl—OR GUY!!”

And with a cheery wink, a “HWAITING!”, and an impassioned fist pump, Eunji marched away with her tray, leaving Minhyuk nothing but amused.

“Here…”

Ilhoon was brought out of his self-deprecating reverie when a vanilla ice cream cone entered his line of vision. Bomi had left to find a peace offering since she somehow thought that she was single-handedly responsible for this entire debacle of a date.

“Or umm…” Bomi switched hands and then offered the chocolate cone. “Here… take your pick.”

A somber Ilhoon gave a small smile in thanks as he grabbed the vanilla cone, and an equally somber/furious Bomi sat down next to him on the bench. Both were understandably at a loss of what to say after the incident, and so they continued to sit in silence while feasting on their respective ice cream cones.

The lack of sound and conversation was beginning to suffocate Ilhoon, and not long after, he nudged Bomi with his shoulder. The stubborn girl continued to stare ahead at the pigeons picking up scraps of food in front of them, refusing to acknowledge the boy’s actions.

“Ya…” Ilhoon spoke just above a whisper, afraid that he would push her too far. He nudged her once again, until Bomi turned her head just enough to glance at him from the corner of her eye.

“Are you… mad at me?” He questioned, switching his gaze from the girl next to him to the pigeons that seemed to be so darn interesting at that very moment.

Bomi responded with a longdrawn sigh… Was she mad at him?? No, not really... but Bomi wasn’t exactly sure how to go about explaining her feelings without confusing him. Now, she felt even worse (if humanly possible) that she had inadvertently caused him to feel like he had done something to deserve her anger, so she had to at least try to explain.

“No… I’m just…” She paused, searching for the correct words. “Frustrated…”

Immediately, Bomi noticed that Ilhoon’s face had fallen even further from those words alone, and she waved her hands in opposition to clarify that…

“No! I mean, not with you…” She nervously directed her full attention to her ice cream cone. “I’m frustrated with myself…”

“I… ottoke… how do I say this…” Realistically, Bomi knew that if she were to say what she was really feeling… then it would more than likely not make any sense at all to him (resulting in what would be ANOTHER thing wrong with this entire day). Again… she had to at least try though.

“You wanted to go