~ Fall, Seven Years Ago ~

I grabbed my phone and marker on the table after I dismissed my class. I fixed the glasses on the bridge of my nose as I walked out of the classroom, bending my head low and blinking my eyes a couple of times to clear it from all the words projected by my students earlier.

When I opened the door, I stopped short as I glanced up and I saw Wheein leaning on the wall across from me with her hands clasped behind her. She’s wearing a green tartan suit with white long-sleeve button down shirt underneath her blazer, the top three buttons of it were left open, and a pair of black leather boots.

“You look so y with those eyeglasses of yours" Wheein said, tipping her chin towards my glasses as she smiled at me.

"Why are you here?" I asked, surprised at her sudden visit before closing the door behind me.

"You don't want me here?" She stood up straight and slightly pouted at me, taken aback from my question.

I shook my head and moved closer to her as I softly laughed at the small pout present on her lips. Then I wrapped my arms around her shoulders while she hugged me around my waist.

"I missed you" I whispered into her ear.

It's been almost a month since Wheein and I have seen each other. It's been almost a month since we've talked to each other and that was still way back on our first date. After our date ended, she drove me back to my car before we separated to head to our individual houses. We haven't gotten to exchange our numbers and we're both not into social media that much, so there was no way we could communicate with each other. There's something comforting about her presence, making me cling to her, that I didn't even realize that I've missed her. Not until this moment.

"Me too" she whispered back.

We slowly pulled back but kept our arms around each other while we stared at each other's eyes.

She smiled at me, showing off that dimple of hers. "Hi," she shyly whispered while laughed at her again.

I softly pinched her dimpleless cheek before we completely pulled away from the embrace. "Seriously, why are you here, Wheein?" I asked, motioning for her to walk with me.

She immediately pushed off the wall and walked beside me. "I'm here to see you, of course. And I'm taking you out for lunch. You haven't had lunch, right?"

"Nope. Where are you taking me then?" I removed my glasses and hung it on the front of black long-sleeve button down shirt. Then I glanced at her, smiling at her when I saw the adorable dimple on her cheek.

"You mentioned how much you love tteokbokki before. I found this new place with tteokbokki stalls just near the university…"

"Okay, stop" I said, cutting her off and stopped us from walking.

Startled, she raised her eyebrows and looked at me with her eyes wide open. "What? Why? You don't like it?"

"You had me at tteokbokki, don't worry" I said, laughing softly at her when her face slowly relaxed. "My office is still floors above this one. Just wait here and let me get my wallet" 

"I'm paying," Wheein said immediately before she smiled at me expectantly. "You're coming, right?"

"Of course"

She smiled so wide and held my hand. "Let's go! Come on! I'm already hungry" she said excitedly before she started dragging me with her.

I sotly laughed at her and just let her drag me out of the building. Some of my students looked at us with curious eyes, but it didn't matter. I've thrown my reputation out of the window because of the person I'm with.

When we were out of the building, the cold fall weather instantly hit me, making me drop Wheein's hand to wrap my arms around my body and shielded myself from the cold wind.

"Ah, " Wheein whispered as she hurriedly took off her blazer to place it around my shoulders. "Sorry. I got so excited that I forgot about the coldness"

"What about you?" I asked, eyeing her with her blouse only.

She smiled so wide before she wrapped her arms around my waist and leaned closer beside me. “We’ll just walk like this then” she said, giggling at my startled face.

I teasingly narrowed my eyes at her and said in a serious voice, “Are you taking advantage of me right now?”

She pouted and shook her head before immediately pulling away from me like a sad kid being scolded for something she did wrong. I pulled her closer to me right away and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as I laughed at her adorable face.

“Come here” I said while her face instantly lighted up when I pulled her back. I pocketed the marker and phone that I was still holding before poking her dimple. Then I wrapped my other arm around her, pulling her even closer to me. “Where’s this place that you’re taking me?”

“Just near here. You'll love it! Come on” she said, smiling excitedly at me as she urged me to start walking.

Walking close to each other was weird and difficult at first, but we were able to maneuver ourselves. At some point, Wheein was walking faster than me, and she almost dragged and lifted me for walking slower. Despite my teasing and her pouting, we were bursting with laughter the whole walk to where she planned to take me. But when we got to the place, I immediately abandoned her, earning another laugh from her, as I walked ahead of her.

The place she took me was like our university canteen, but simpler and instead of different food providers, tteokbokki stalls were sitting side by side by the wall. Rows of benches were placed in the middle for the customers. There were still a lot of customers eating by the benches even though it was already past one in the afternoon.

I glanced behind Wheein who was smiling at how excited I am. “How many are we buying?”

“Would you want to try everything?” she offered, her smile never faltering.

“Can we do that?” I said, surprised and excited at the thought of trying from all of eight stalls in the place.

She chuckled as she nodded at me. A huge smile broke out of my face as I turned around and walked to the first stall nearest to me. I ordered one cup of tteokbokki from each stall and placed them on the tray I brought. Wheein was always one stall behind when we were still buying them, getting stuck to wait for her change. The stall owners were also scolding me, thinking that I was running away without paying, but they’ll immediately stop when Wheein would hurriedly walk to them and pay for what I bought.

A huge smile plastered on my face as my mouth started to water from all the tteokbokki in front of me while I walked to an empty bench on the far end of the place room. I placed the tray on the table before sliding down on the bench. I removed Wheein’s blazer on my shoulders and laid it on my lap since the room is not as cold as outside. Wheein sat across from me bringing two bottles of water as I arranged the cups based on the layout of the stalls.

“Why are the cups in U formation?” Wheein asked curiously across from me as she eyed each one of the cups on the table.

“So that we’ll know where they come from based on the placement of the stalls in this room. For reference purposes” I explained as I pointed at the cups then at the stalls in the room. “We’ll have to see which one of these is the best”

“Okay then” Wheein nodded as I grabbed the first cup near me.

I grabbed the fork on the cup, tasted it myself first before feeding Wheein some. We continued to do this in all of the eight cups on the table. She grabbed the two sets of tissues by the tray and would sometimes grab my hand, after I placed a cup down, to wipe it from the leaked sauce on the cup where I got it. Occasionally, she would wipe the sauce on my chin. Wheein was chuckling at how focused I was in judging the cups of tteokbokki in front of us. When we were done tasting all of them, she handed me the bottle of water before drinking from her own.

I placed the bottle on the table after drinking and pointed at the first cup we tasted. “Too spicy” I started as Wheein leaned her elbows on the table, listening intently to me. “The black pepper flavor was making it too spicy”

“Why? You don’t like anything spicy?” Wheein asked curiously.

“No, I can handle spicy food, but tteokbokki shouldn’t be too spicy. How could you taste the rice cakes in that case?”

“Oh, point taken” she said, nodding her head at me.

“But this one, however,” I continued, pointing at the sixth cup, which was near Wheein. “Is way too spicy”

“Yeah” she strongly agreed, pouting at the cup as she nodded her head vigorously. “The spicy flavor just went straight to my throat. It made me cough right away”

“Well, about that…” I said softly. “I might’ve fed you the pepper instead of the rice cake.” I instantly clamped my mouth shut, trying not to laugh whe she directed her pout at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me? That’s why it felt weird” she whined in front of me.

I laughed, unable to hold it anymore as I reached a hand to softly pinch her cheek. “I’m sorry. I only realized that when you were coughing already. My focus was directed on somewhere else”

She continued to pout at me so I stopped laughing. I cupped her cheek and gently rubbed my thumb on her cheek, hoping to comfort her. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I got so lost when I was tasting it that I didn’t noticed when I fed you some”

She held my wrist and suddenly placed a soft kiss on my palm. “It’s okay. Don’t worry” she whispered before she released her hold on it while she smiled at me.

I retrieved my hand as my blush started creeping up my face. Trying to shake the blush away and ignoring the fluttering in my chest, I pointed at the sixth cup again to get us back to what we were doing earlier. “Disregarding the pepper incident, it is still really too spicy” I said, glancing at her as she continued to intently listen at me.

I love how she’s taking this seriously though. It’s as if I’m discussing the most interesting thing in this world to her when we’re just simply critiquing tteokbokki in front of us. There’s not an ounce of mockery on her face but only pure genuineness and curiosity to whatever I’m going to say.

“The cheese in this one is really good,” I continued, pointing at the second cup.

“Oh, yeah!” she said excitedly, smiling wide at me. “The cheese was my favorite”

I smiled back at her before I continued. “The rice cakes on this one are a little bit hard,” I said, pointing at the third cup.

“And this one’s too soft,” Wheein added, pointing at the seventh cup. “The beef made this better though. What do you think?” she glanced up, waiting for me to answer her.

“Agreed” I said, nodding my head at her as she smiled so wide from what I said.

We continued to give our opinions on each of the cups. Then we finished the rest of them. Since Wheein doesn’t want to touch the one with huge peppers, I finished it myself. At some point, she was making me guess the tteokbokki. She made me close my eyes and fed them to me. Every time I got it right, we celebrated like we hit the jackpot in a casino, laughing so loud and jumping a little from our seats, making the other customers look at us every time we became so loud.

Wheein didn’t mind it though. I would’ve. I would’ve cared a lot since I usually keep myself contained around strangers, but not when Wheein’s around.

I could become stupid and childlike but it won’t matter becaue it doesn’t matter to her.

We walked back to the university the same way we exited it earlier. When we reached the university gate, Wheein slowly pulled away from me and stood straighter in front of me.

“How was it?” she asked when I finally faced her.

I removed her blazer on my shoulders and held it open in front of us so she could wear it easily. She inserted her arms on the blazer’s sleeves, pulled her hair out, before she turned to face me again. I helped her fix the blazer before I smiled and looked at her.

“I had fun. I am also full” I said, laughing softly while she smiled at me. “Thank you, Wheein.” I stepped closer to her and slowly wrapped my arms around her waist underneath her blazer and rested my chin on her shoulder. “I really enjoyed today,” I added, feeling her arms holding me close to her as well.

And I really did enjoy it. It was a simple lunch, unlike the fancy restaurant she took me to on our first date. I still really enjoyed our dinner at that time. I even more enjoyed our time after that, probably because the awkwardness between us was already gone when we kept on talking for the rest of the night. Today was equally as fun as that time. Maybe it is not the place after all. It’s about the company I was with.

“I’m really glad that you did” she whispered as she hugged me so tight. “I’ll see you again?” she asked as we pulled away from the hug.

I smile