001: Start of Something Scandalous

prompt: beginnings

The day she met him was a disaster.

On many accounts while looking back on the encounter, Hyoyeon writes it off among other words like “catastrophe” and “misfortune”. Her day had been absolutely, and obnoxiously, awful—her boyfriend had just dumped her over the phone, her best friend was all of a sudden ‘happily-ever-after’ engaged, her cat had oh-so-precariously escaped the confines of her apartment, she was completely alone, and utterly, single.

Not that that was meant as a completely bad thing—but when you were a freaking twenty-four year old adult woman, and all of your girlfriends were just suddenly running away to get swept off their feet in a romantic whirlwind marriage, the word ‘single’ was nothing more than a royal slap across the face. Nothing could get worse.

But of course—God had an absolutely convivial sense of humor.

This is the only thing running through her mind as she’s pulled over on the side of the highway, staring in her rearview mirror as she waits for some ridiculously pompous policeman to hustle out of his car to fine her an undoubtedly high bill. As she’s sitting there, she contemplates driving off in a dramatic movie-like getaway, but she knows she’s far past her limit to try her luck, today. She expects the officer to be fat. And extremely unpleasant. Just like all of the other cops in downtown Seoul.

That’s why she’s genuinely surprised when she catches the sight of a young policeman striding up to her car, one hand rested on the gun-holster of his belt. She tilts her head, squints for a better look. When she draws back, she feels her pulse return to her, sevenfold. He’s more than young. He’s attractive. He has nice shoulders, a lazy swag in his saunter. She swallows.

You will not be attracted to him, Hyoyeon. You will not.

Her conscience is right; completely right. She didn’t have time to bat her eyelashes at fresh meat—she still needed about a week to nurse the impending doom of her current heartbreak. It’s only been an hour, Hyoyeon, Jesus Christ. Down, girl, down!

There’s a knock on her window. She glances outside, expecting to see the officer brazenly peering in with that obnoxious air of authority, as most cops usually did, but instead she’s directly met with a leather-cased police ID pressed right against her glass. She catches a flash of his picture, and she shakes her head quickly, reminding herself of her established boundaries. She fixes a nonchalant expression on her face, and rolls her window down smoothly. She uses her sweet-talking voice.

“How can I help you, officer?”

The cop pauses, assessing her without a word. He raises one eyebrow.

“Well, love; you could help yourself a lot by obeying the law.” The man looks down at her admonishingly, from behind the shine of his black aviators. He’s already writing her a ticket, the cap of his pen propped in between his lips. Hyoyeon frowns; he wasn't even going to give her a chance to try and bull her way out of the situation? Was he not affected by her appearance?

“It was an accident, sir. I promise it won’t happen again.”

His mouth tugs into a smirk, and he laughs. He glances at her momentarily, before moving back to his notepad, shaking his head gently. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a sorry excuse like that from a pretty little thing like you. Try harder.”

Hyoyeon can feel her cheeks warm up as she looks up at him. She notices he has sharp features, and she remembers his single eyelids from the ID picture—she likes that, even though she knows she shouldn’t. She props an arm up inside of her car, and rests her chin on it. She smiles. Try harder, Hyoyeon. So she does.

“Oh, but I could definitely assure you, I’m nothing like those other girls, officer.”

His pen halts on the notepad. The smirk finds its way back to his mouth, and he lowers his writing hand, letting out an exasperated chuckle. He leans down to her window, so close that they’re almost eye-to-eye. The tone in his voice is unmistakably libidinous.

“Are you trying to flirt with me, miss?”

She grins at him, and she knows she probably shouldn’t go along with what’s about to happen. But she can’t stop herself from reaching out to slide the sunglasses off of his face. His eyes are dark, and it seems so, that he’s thinking exactly what she’s thinking.

“And if I am, officer?”