A/N: Hi, guys! Here’s the next chapter. Enjoy~ :D

The silence and awkwardness were suffocating.

Dr. Cho kept alternating between intensely staring at Yesung and staring back down at his plate. Yesung, for his part, kept his eyes focused on his glass, idly stirring the lemonade with his straw.

After a while, Yesung couldn’t stand the silence anymore. He cleared his throat.

“So,” he began.

The other doctor’s eyes went from his plate to Yesung in less than a second.

“Uhm, was it just me, or was Dr. Lee kind of behaving oddly a while ago?” Yesung said with an awkward shrug. He had been casting his mind around for a topic for small talk, and Dr. Lee’s odd behavior and sudden departure seemed like a safe-enough topic. Besides, Yesung really was curious about how Dr. Lee had acted.

Dr. Cho let out an unexpected snort.

“Wonder what makes you say that?” His tone was sarcastic, but his eyes were bright with genuine good humor. “The fact that her smirk said clearly that she was up to something, or the fact that her husband claimed that he was actually burning down their kitchen while making dinner?”

That had Yesung frowning a bit. “How is the fact that her husband claimed to be burning down their kitchen odd, though?”

Dr. Cho chuckled. “Her husband is actually competent at cooking. If anything, Dr. Lee is the one who often risks burning down their entire neighborhood when she tries to cook.”

Yesung looked at the other doctor curiously. “You are close to Dr. Lee and her husband, then?”

He had noticed how Dr. Cho had refer to Dr. Lee’s husband as “hyung” when he asked Dr. Lee to greet her husband for him. And now, Dr. Cho was talking about the husband being a competent cook. Given those things, there had to be some significant degree of closeness or familiarity between them.

However, for reasons unknown to Yesung, Dr. Cho’s smile suddenly became fixed and strained. “Oh, yeah, her husband and I were childhood friends. We were close growing up and even when we became adults. And I knew about Sa-eun before I left for Japan,” he said vaguely with a wry tone.

Just moments ago, Yesung was thinking that Dr. Cho was very close to Dr. Lee and husband. Now, Yesung was suddenly wondering about how Dr. Cho spoke in a wry tone. Which kind of implied that there was some past conflict there.

Yesung knew better than to ask, though. It would be impolite. It would be such a personal question. He didn’t know how he should respond, but thankfully, Dr. Cho continued on.

“After I came back from Japan last year, I became close to hyung again. I became close to Sa-eun, too,” the other doctor said in a warmer tone. “And then, she helped me with my job.”

“Dr. Lee was the one who helped you transfer to the hospital, right?” Yesung asked for confirmation.

“Yeah, Sa-eun helped with my requirements, and she also discussed the matter with the board of directors… And now that I’m back, I hang out with them often, especially since I don’t know many people yet in this part of the city. They regularly invite me to dinner at their home.”

“That’s very nice of them.”

However, Dr. Cho surprised Yesung when he scoffed. “You would think so, right? But not really. I still say that they mainly use those dinner invitations to tease me about my cooking.”

“Bad at cooking, are you?” Yesung smirked. With how Dr. Lee kept talking a while ago about how smart and great Dr. Cho was, Yesung had been starting to think that the other doctor was brilliant at everything. To find out that Dr. Cho was actually helpless about something so ordinary like cooking was actually kind of endearing.

“No!” Dr. Cho said immediately, defensive.

Yesung just continued to smirk, though, and after a few moments, Dr. Cho let out a defeated sigh.

“All right,” he admitted. “I’m actually even worse than Dr. Lee when it comes to cooking.”

With the way Dr. Cho admitted it, it seemed more like he was confessing to a great, tragic flaw. But then, Yesung supposed that since Dr. Cho was good at a lot of things, it couldn’t have been easy for the other doctor’s ego to be terrible at something such as cooking.

Yesung was unable to stop the laughter that escaped from his lips.

Dr. Cho was glared at Yesung for a few seconds, irritated that he was being laughed at. However, the sound of Yesung’s laughter entranced the other doctor, and the glaring was almost immediately replaced by the intense staring again.

Yesung noticed the stare, and his laughter was abruptly stopped. He flushed again. 

The awkwardness at the table was back.

Yesung decided to return his attention to the huge amount of food that Dr. Lee had ordered. He reached out for a slice of chocolate cake.

“Whoa, there!” Dr. Cho said suddenly, grabbing onto Yesung’s hand and stopping it before it could even touch the plate that was holding the cake.

The spark of electricity flowed again when their hands touched. However, Yesung had more pressing matters to attend to. Such as the fact that Dr. Cho was stopping him from getting some cake!

“What’s the problem?” Yesung asked, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. He had been longing for chocolate cake ever since they entered this café!

“Your cardiologist instructed you not to eat sweets just before she left,” Dr. Cho said in that stern-doctor-voice.

Yesung looked at him in disbelief. “You were the one telling me a while ago to just eat sweets when she’s not around!”

“Yeah, but that was before Dr. Lee threatened us before she left, Jongwoon.”

“Please, call me Yesung.”

“Pardon me?”

“Call me Yesung. Everybody does. All my friends and co-workers do so. The only ones who really still call me Jongwoon are my immediate family—my father, my mother, and my younger brother.”

“Sa-eun calls you by your real name,” Dr. Cho pointed out. He didn’t miss that Dr. Lee referred to her patient as “Jongwoon” or even “Jongwoonie.” 

“Well, yeah, but that’s because we have more of a professional relationship. It’s kind of odd that my cardiologist would refer to me by my nickname. Especially when she was treating me and trying to keep me alive when I was an inch from death.”