5.

Ga Eul squeezes her eyes shut, contemplating to show her face to the man again but that guy patiently waits, making her feel guilty about it also lifts a wonder on how she should cut off her own awkwardness. The lady however keeps her eyes wandering around their surrounding instead of keeping the contact. She breathes, “Did you tell my mom about it?”

Jongdae lifts his head up from looking at his own feet, confronting the lady who stood a few small steps away from him. Only now he has the chance to take a good look at the latter’s face, since all this time that person had always be running away from him, out of…unclear motives, perhaps for no reason at all. “Just the incident in front of the mart. It was my fault…that day,” he admits. Now he feels that it was stupid of him being careless about the safety, solely only to chase over a television program that will have countless times of reruns in the future.

“That’s all? You didn’t tell her about anything else?”

“Anything else…what? Do you want me to tell more? Of you yelling right on my face when we first met?”

“Pardon?”

Not believing her own ears, Ga Eul lifts her head up and her voice immediately hikes up a notch upon receiving the counter-question while the other innocently smiles as if he hasn’t shoot a bullet a few seconds ago. “By the way, I have something for…you…Miss.” Jongdae clears his throat and lifts the red box in his hand, “Please accept this.”

The lady raises a brow, questioning her neighbour’s sudden act yet the box exchanges its position as Ga Eul slowly secure what’s being given. She looks at the gift box attentively, especially when she could feel the weight of it and so the former steals a glance from behind her lashes and the man quietly nods, welcoming her to open it up.

“What’s the meaning behind this?”

“A price I have to pay…perhaps?”

She squints at the response and hesitantly checks out the content of it. “You…” Deadpanned, her words halt. And soon as Ga Eul lifts up her gaze to the other person, she meets a sincere smile before a 90° bow comes next.

“I hope I gain forgiveness in return. You even cried that moment, I can’t turn a blind eye on that,” the young man tells the guilt that he felt over what had happened that day, while the lady is still keeping shut, in fact, Ga Eul is still taken aback by that previous act – especially of how the fruits are arranged neatly in one box and it is cute to think that a guy prepared it for an apology – however still, she decides to be cool about it that leads her to clear awkwardly.

She nods a few time, approving, then reaches one hand out for a handshake. “Okay, then. I guess I’ll forgive you.”

Jongdae’s corner of the lips turn down in approval frown as he gladly takes that hand but he holds it tight when the other decides to pull away, which causes for the lady to feel confused and insisting to break the contact however fails every time she tries. Ga Eul huffs then immediately directs as glare at the former but all she sees is a sneaky smile before the man opens his mouth just to say, “I think you owe me an apology too.”

“Excuse me?” She is still giving off her death stare however the other person seems to nonchalantly ignore it all and still grinning teasingly.

“Well then, was it my fault? On the day we met?”

“You said I was staring at you…I was not…!” she insists, making the handshake breaks by itself for Jongdae flinches over the loud tone that came up out of sudden. He clearly sees the lady’s face is flushed while claiming her innocence – is it out of anger or embarrassment?

The man sighs, ready to give up, “Is it that hard to apologize?”

“Yes, since I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Shouting right on one’s face wasn’t considered as ‘wrong’?”

“Maybe not?”

“What?” Jongdae squints in disbelief, “Come on, we’re going to see each other’s face every day anyway. Let’s settle this down real fast, okay?”

The lady still foolishly disagrees, shrugging off her shoulders then crosses her arms, “I guess we’ll just avoid seeing each other then.” And so Ga Eul stomps her feet to the door behind her, leaving the young man sighing to himself.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Hey.”

Jongdae greets as soon as he steps into the room, approaching his friend just to tap the latter’s shoulder before landing a small stack of resumes that he has reviewed last night on that large walnut desk that matched with the other three bookshelves behind them.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“Can I not do it to