Chapter 20
Let's Not Fall In LoveBy the end of the week after Dara’s return, everything just sort of naturally fell back in to place. Which made Jiyong both happy and unhappy. She was back home and that alone lifted him up from the dump he was in for the past weeks. Breakfast for the days that she was home once again gave a kick to his mornings. The end of a work day was something he looked forward to because he was no longer going home to an empty house.
The weeks when Dara went MIA, he would work until the wee hours of the morning doing stuff that he could do the following day to the horror of his staff. If he stayed they stayed. They didn’t have the guts to ask their dragon of a boss if they could go home when he was so obviously up to his neck with paperwork. Anyone attempting to approach him unnecessarily would be greeted alternatively by an arrogant lift of an eyebrow or a snarly “What?”. Everyone tried to steer clear of him in the hallways. It was difficult facing your boss and greeting him with a ‘Good morning’ when all you’ll get in return is a stare down his nose and a tart reply of ‘What’s good in the morning?’
But now that Dara’s back he had gone back to his senses. The morning after Dara came home he apologized for being an to his staff for the past weeks. The whole office stared at him as he apologized not quite believing their ears. It was one for the books. The Dragon was apologizing and to top it all off he compensated everyone by giving them a long weekend off and a bonus for their overtime work. The long hours they had put in had set them ahead with the workload and he knew the staff could do with some needed rest. Otherwise he’d end up with a stack of resignation letters on his desk.
So it was on the late afternoon of the Friday when he gave the whole office a long weekend off that he came home once again to find the television on. He was excited because that meant Dara was home and maybe now he could get the chance to talk to her. The cause of his unhappiness was that he was still back to square one with Dara. For the whole week during the days that she wasn’t on 24 hour duty shifts, she would arrive late claiming to be attending all sorts of round table discussions and journal club meetings. He was going crazy. He wanted… No, scratch that. He needed to talk to her.
“Movie night?” He confirmed as he passed by her. She didn’t even look up at him but just went on staring at the screen, acknowledging him with a thumbs up. On his way up she yelled, “I ordered Chinese. Would you grab my wallet on your way down so I could pay the delivery guy later?”
“Okay,” he yelled back. He sprinted towards his room, showered quickly and swiftly changed into more comfortable clothes.
On his way down, the doorbell went off. “Would you please get that, Ji. Its probably the food.” He frowned as he continued on to the front door. Her words were spoken in a suspiciously nasal voice and her last sentence was followed by an almost imperceptible sniffle. ‘Is she crying?’ He wondered. He distractedly paid off the delivery guy and hurriedly went towards the living room to check on her.
True enough his suspicion was right. There huddled beneath the blanket was a sniveling, snot-nosed, teary eyed Dara with an almost empty box of tissues and a mountain of crumpled used tissues beside her. He looked at the TV. She was hooked on to the net, surfing videos on YT. He was confused. She was watching some sort of video about someone learning how to dance. How in the hell would a dance video make her cry this much? For the life of him he could not make the two things connect. Times like this he wish he had two X chromosomes. His Y chromosome is pretty much useless when it comes to dealing with crying, incoherent ladies.
He approached and sat beside her, after setting the takeout boxes at the coffee table. “Um, Dee,” he paused. He didn’t know what to say. His girl was crying and he didn’t know why. Was it something he did? Or was it something he didn’t do? Living with her for forever taught him one thing. To never assume.
She turned red-rimmed eyes at him. was quivering.
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