That night when Baekhyun offered Eunbin a ride home, she suddenly felt like that day was one of her most tiring days. She sat on the bus and leaned her head against the window. Her head was blank on the whole ride. She focused on the buildings and trees outside rather on a certain person.

When she got into her shared apartment and immediately went to clean herself up, her tears fell on their own under the shower head. With one hand on the wall supporting herself, another was lifted up to cover her crying face.

Why?

After he broke up with her, never once did he ever try to text her. He never texted her too when it was her birthday. He never came home to Bucheon too after leaving for university. The bottom line was, after they were done, Byun Baekhyun had never existed in her life anymore. He was something like a stubborn dust which difficult to clean.

And when fate made them meet again. He thought he could just act like their past never happened? Maybe he could, but Eunbin couldn’t. Smiling so handsomely at her and being kind to give her a ride, the tears flowed freer at those images.

Eunbin’s heart ached. It missed him. It missed his warmth and smile. After being alone for more than two years since their break up, it missed him badly after their surprising encounters. Her hands suddenly yearned to interlace with his. Her body itched to melt with his. Her skin longed to feel against his.

Loneliness and never opened up to anyone else really did the damage. Maybe if she had tried to open up for another boys, this pain wouldn’t happen. But then it scared her, and so she shut down that thought. Eunbin washed her face and calmed herself down. She mumbled to herself, convincing herself that she was okay. That it was just a moment of weakness. And that she didn’t truly miss Byun Baekhyun, just the moments and the good memories she had with him.

Eunbin’s eyes were half-opened. With that, the ache inside her chest subsided and it became… empty.

She needed to toughen herself up. She heard from Hyeri that Mrs. Kwon was their regular customer. Baekhyun was an intern at her company, but she took a liking of him that he mostly worked close with her now. Eunbin guessed that she would see Baekhyun pretty often at her new workplace. Just thinking about it drained her energy.

After putting on a new set of clothes, she dropped herself on the bed, lying on her side as she curled her body as small as possible.

Two coincidences in a week. What a bad luck, Eunbin sighed before her eyes grew heavier and she finally fell asleep.

“Excuse me?”

Eunbin turned around and her grip on her tea loosened, causing the plastic bottle fell to the grass and tea inside spilled out. Baekhyun was surprised that he took a step back so that the tea wouldn’t get on his shoes. His wide eyes dragged back up and met with another pair of surprised eyes but for an entirely different reason.

He hesitated, “Park?”

Eunbin swore, if he could just stop calling her ‘Park’…

Wait, that wasn’t it. She frowned at him, “Are you stalking me or something?”

Baekhyun quickly shook his head and said, “No, no, no!” He shook his hands too now and added, “I swear, I’m not.”

“Then, what are you doing here?”

He explained, “I’m here with Mrs. Kwon. She has a friend here at K University to meet. But, I lost her.”

Eunbin raised up one of her eyebrows, “A friend?”

He vigorously nodded, then racked inside his memory, trying to remember the name of Mrs. Kwon’s friend. “It’s… Mrs. Lee—“

“There are a lot of people with the surname Lee,” Eunbin cut in. By now, she started to feel annoyed with these encounters. After that one time coincidence, it had happened not twice, but three times. Before she saw Baekhyun again, her life was quiet and peaceful. But now it had become stressful for her.

“Lee Hyori! She’s a lecturer here and Mrs. Kwon has something urgent to talk with her,” said Baekhyun after finally remembering the name.

Eunbin sighed. She knew Mrs. Lee Hyori because she was one of her lecturers for this semester. It seemed that Baekhyun really wasn’t lying and stalking on her then.

She shot him a questioning look, “If you lost your boss, you can call her.”

Sheepishly, he replied, “My phone’s dead.”

For proof, he took out his phone to show it to her and tap on it but it didn’t light up.

“Your phone’s dead,” Eunbin repeated his words blankly, staring at the useless device in his hand.

Baekhyun shifted his weight from side to side, “Do you happen to know where Mrs. Lee Hyori’s office is? Could you take me there?”

Eunbin went through her hair with her fingers, looking at their surroundings. There were more than thirty other students in the yard, and he had to come to her. This was so troublesome and annoying.

He noticed her face had turned upset. He felt a little bad, so he tried to say, “Park, you—“

“—Follow me.” Surprisingly, she actually turned around and started to walk away to the direction where Lee Hyori’s office was. Baekhyun was stupefied for a moment. He had thought for sure the girl would leave her be.

Not hearing any footsteps close behind her, Eunbin stopped and turned to see that Baekhyun still stood where he was. “Are you coming or not?” she shouted at him.

“Yes, yes!” Baekhyun started to jog to her way.

He didn’t dare to start a conversation with her throughout the walk, fearing he would upset her more. He would glance at her way several times. Since the first time he saw her, he already felt something felt different with her. Her demeanor and aura seemed to have changed. Baekhyun couldn’t seem to find the lovable young Eunbin anymore.

Probably that was his fault and she only acted cold to him because he did break her heart, he sadly thought.

Then, the two almost reached lecturers’ room when they spotted Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Kwon were going in too from the opposite direction.

“That’s them.”

“Baekhyun!” Mrs. Kwon called out to him when her eyes landed on him too.

She sheepishly apologized to him after accidentally leaving him alone. She had tried to call his phone several times, but it wouldn’t get through. Then, she just knew that Baekhyun’s phone was out of battery.

Mrs. Lee turned to Eunbin. “Thank you for bringing him here. BoA had been really nervous because she couldn’t find him,” she chuckled.

“Oh, you!” Mrs. Kwon exclaimed when she saw Eunbin. She frowned and tilted her head, thinking hard. “You look familiar.”

At the side, Baekhyun answered it for her, “This is Park Eunbin. She works part-time at that restaurant you like to go to. We’ve met at that time dinner with clients from Singapore.”

The lines on Mrs. Kwon’s forehead smoothened down and her lips curled up into a beautiful smile. Her eyes shone with realization, “Aha, I see. What a coincidence! That reminds me, Baekhyun, don’t forget to make a reservation for next Sunday.”

Out of conscious, Eunbin remembered that she had her shift on next Sunday, that meant that she would see Baekhyun on that day. Already, she was tempted to find another part-timer to change shift with her.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a person who could change shift with her.

Baekhyun arrived five minutes earlier from the reservation he made for Mrs. Kwon. He talked with Hyeri about the menus he had chosen prior. Mrs. Kwon was punctual, she came in with a well-dressed man. Herself was pretty dressed up too with her hand circled the man’s arm. Baekhyun stepped forward and greeted them with a charming grin. The two entered the private room they had asked for. Eunbin thought Baekhyun would follow them in, but he didn’t and stood still where he was.

Hyeri called for Eunbin then to stand next to her. Then, Baekhyun stared at both Hyeri and her. He politely smiled and said, “Please, serve them well. It’s an important day for them both.” They responded with a nod.

When Baekhyun was about to leave, Hyeri asked, “Are you leaving now? Don’t you want to have a dinner first?”

He pursed his lips before finally agreed. He asked for a table for one.

“Eunbin will be your waitress.”

The owner of the name was surprised and dumbly stared at Hyeri. gaped opened as she pointed at herself. Hyeri nodded and lifted up her chin, signaling Eunbin to start moving. Defeated and as there was no way to disobey her senior, Eunbin could only lower her head and leaded Baekhyun to an empty table.

As Baekhyun was looking at the menu with Eunbin standing next to his side, he couldn’t help but asked, “Do you hate it that much to be my waitress?”

She mumbled low enough that only they two could hear it, “I’ve told you, being close with you make me feel uncomfortable.”

He turned to next page and responded, “I thought giving you a ride home makes you uncomfortable.”

“No. It’s you,” she pressed.

He lifted up his head to lock eyes with her, feeling a bit taken aback, while the way he looked straight into her eyes made her palms sweaty. Eunbin sighed and avoided his gaze. She asked, “Are you ready to order?”

After she served Baekhyun’s food and another table, she was told that she could go home now. She changed her uniform into her casual outfits and packed her stuffs. As she was waving her hands bye to the others, she just realized that outside was having a heavy downpour. She stood in front of the entrance door and sighed heavily.

Eunbin wanted to go home soon, but she had forgotten her umbrella. She thought for a while and decided to just run under the rain. She hovered her bag on top of her head and was about to take off, then suddenly someone grabbed her by the arm.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun had to shout over the loud splatter against the ground and roof so that Eunbin could hear him.

She shouted back, “Going home.”

Baekhyun squinted and looked at the rain, then he looked back at her. “Don’t you have an umbrella?” he questioned and Eunbin shook her head. He muttered, “Let me take you home. I have a car.”

She rolled her eyes. Realizing that his hand was still on her, she shrugged to get his attention to let go of her. But Baekhyun wouldn’t budge and still had a firm hold on her. He frowned at her, “Park.”

Eunbin said, “Don’t you understand Korean now? I told you that you make me uncomfortable.”

He raised a hand and nodded his head, “I know, I know. But I can’t let you run through the rain. You’ll get sick.” He paused for a second or two before he continued, “You can never get rain on you. Just even a little bit, your body will go warm and you’ll have a headache.”

His stare was too much for Eunbin that she had to turn her head avoiding it. “Why do you care?” she snorted.

“Before you were my girlfriend, you were a little sister who I took care.”

Just like that, was stuck. It was a fact, but the part when he said she was his girlfriend in past tense was like a knife stabbed into her poor heart.

Baekhyun took her silence as an agreement. He told her to stay put while he ran across the road to take the car. Eunbin had wanted to resist again, but he was already gone before she could. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She decided to let him be because she was too drained.

As fast as he had gone, the car pulled over in front of the restaurant in a blink of an eye. Baekhyun opened the door from inside, then Eunbin reluctantly got in. As soon as the door was closed, the outside rain noise grew quieter. She could only hear a vague sound of the rain fall on the car’s roof.

“Are you cold?” Baekhyun considerately asked. Not waiting for her answer, he already set the temperature up. After that, he leaned back and glanced at Eunbin who had been silent with her head down.

“Better?”

No. But she nodded.

“Put in your address,” said Baekhyun, pointing at the screen in the middle.

Eunbin really didn’t want him to know where she lived, but she still obediently typed in.

When she was done, the car started to move. They didn’t talk, they didn’t turn on the radio. Eunbin simply leaned her head against the window and looked out at the rain outside.

The silent blanketed over them only lasted for ten minutes. It broke when Baekhyun started, “You live pretty far from the restaurant. Why?”

“The payment is good.”

“What do you think of Seoul?”

Eunbin hummed, “Everybody seems busy. Even when they’re walking down the streets, their eyes are on their phones.” It was what she expected from a capital city.

“Have you gotten used to live here?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

“If you need anything, you can call me.”

That made Eunbin’s shoulders turned stiff. She didn’t respond anything for a beat, because she didn’t know what she should say.

Seeing h