Mina sighs in relief as she walks out of the aerobridge, finally setting foot on the floor of Atatürk Airport for the first time. It’s been 12 hours on flight from Incheon and she’s dead tired.

This is her first time in Turkey and her first time travelling alone. She has travelled to 11 countries for the past nine months, three or four countries with her parents and the rest with her best friends. Whenever she has the time she would escape reality. Perks of being rich. All she does at age 21 is study and travel. She loves what she does and it has become her hobby and a part of her life. Mina loves exploring the world, but she is not as adventurous as you may think. Right now she is looking forward to Germany. She is so excited to meet her elementary school friend who is married to a German, now living there.

She follows the sign to get to the transit hall. Most of the passengers from her previous flight walk the same way, so she’s not wrong. Mina has travelled to many different countries but she still gets anxious at the airport, afraid of getting lost, missing her flights, delayed flights and cancellations. You name all possibilities.

Before entering the transit area, she goes through security check. There is a long line where she can see a lot of people of different races and colour. They seem intimidating, maybe because she’s small. She holds on to her passport and boarding pass tightly.

Mina makes sure she’s not missing any of her belongings and proceeds to put her handbag on the conveyor belt despite the nervousness she feels inside her due to the number of people waiting for the security check. As soon as she is done, she walks with the intention of finding her gate but apparently it’s not stated in her boarding pass. What’s written is only her flight number. She follows where everyone is heading to. The airport is huge and she is not even there yet. She can’t see the gates. There are restaurants and stores selling high end brands. There is also a big supermarket.

Mina thinks of buying something, maybe food but she’s full thanks to the in-flight meals she had so she decides not to. As she walks further, there is a huge TV displaying arrivals and departures flight information in real-time. Her flight number is there however, the gate is not available yet, probably because there are too many flights. It’s going to take some time for a gate to open. She can wait. Smiling, she fishes out her Leica Q camera her mom bought for her last month. She has taken a few pictures with it so she’s excited to use it now and when she arrives in Berlin soon.

She snaps a picture of the TV screen just to keep it as a memory. Mina wanders around and takes pictures of whatever she can. Pictures of people walking by, the stores, food, etc. Then, she keeps the camera and fishes out a few euros to buy a bottle of mineral water.

“How much is this in Euro?” is an essential question to ask since she has only euros with her.

After getting a few gulps of water to quench her thirst, she finds a seating area with not many people. There are a lot of empty seats for her to maybe sleep on.

Mina is about to sit when she spots a man with brown coloured hair, wearing spectacles typing away on his laptop a few seats away from her. He is so attractive she can’t take her eyes off him. Mina usually doesn’t care about men but this one right here is gorgeous. She slowly takes her seat, putting her bag on her lap.

The man on her left scrunches his face every few seconds. It’s cute considering how handsome he looks. He seems like a very busy man while she has nothing with her except some necessities, including the sweater she’s wearing and the mineral water she bought earlier. It’s going to get boring.

Mina sits there quietly and tries not to get caught looking at the handsome man. She takes out her phone, types in the wifi password written on a piece of paper on the wall opposite of her. Thank god it’s free. Wanting to kill time, she watches some Youtube videos. Short ones.

After a good 30 minutes of using her phone, she gets up to check her gate number. It’s still not stated there on the flat screen. Guess she has to wait a little longer. As she walks back to her seat, not forgetting to steal a glance at the brunet, she gets caught off guard when the said man looks up from his laptop and their eyes meet. His face expressionless.

Mina quickly looks away because she feels awkward. The man doesn’t seem to care as he goes back to doing his work.

This is the third time she gets up from her seat, twice to the restroom and once just to walk around, observing everything around her. It’s been more than two hours.

After getting bored of just walking around, she goes back to her seat. Mina charges her phone and sits there not knowing what to do. It was a bad idea to not bring anything with her. She regrets not bringing her yarn and other materials for her to knit a scarf. It’s her favourite thing to do. Maybe she should have also brought her laptop.

She looks out the window, it’s still day time. Clock on the wall says it’s 1:10 P.M. There are people sleeping, probably having to wait longer than her.

“You bored?”

Mina goes “Huh?”, startled at the sudden question by the man next to her. She doesn’t see the laptop with him. He must have finished whatever he was doing.

He stares at her, waiting for a response.

“Um, yeah.” Mina blinks repeatedly. So he’s Korean, but doesn’t really look like one.

“I saw you alone and wandering around. Korean?”

“Japanese. But my family migrated to Korea when I was 7.” She doesn’t quite sure why she told him that. Maybe because he asked.

He comes closer, taking his two bags with him. From sitting three seats away, they are now sitting next to each other.

The handsome brunet nods, holding out his hand. “I’m Sehun.”

Mina handshakes him. “Mina. Myoui Mina.”

Hands still not letting go, he realises she gave him her full name. “Oh, right. Oh Sehun,” making them both smile.

“Oh Sehun?”

Sehun pushes his glasses up his nose. “Yes, that’s me.”

Mina feels her heart beating at the little thing he did. He’s both hot and cute at the same time. She guesses maybe a man like him is her type.

He then rummages through his bag, looking for something. Oh my god. Mina is stunned by how handsome he looks while he’s focusing on searching. The way he looks serious. It’s the same as when he was using his laptop earlier.

Sehun finds it and hands her a Mars chocolate bar. “Here, have this. I already had one. You probably need some sugar.”

Mina hesitates but accepts it because she loves chocolate to death and there is no way she would decline.

“You love chocolates, don’t you?” Sehun smiles softly at her.

She replies, “Yes. Very much.”

“I can see how your eyes lighted up when you saw the chocolate bar. Eat it now before it melts.” He smiles smugly.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter