DOUBLE UPDATE! :D

BOOK CHAPTER II

December 12, 2020

Entry #14

[I keep waiting, boy you never come…]

It’s been almost four months since Hanna first met Yohan in the orphanage. A month after they first met, Hanna had visited the orphanage at least three times. At her third visit, she told the director that she’s interested in adopting Yohan.

“Ms. Lee, the adoption usually takes six months or so. Do you really want to pursue it?”

“Yes.” Hanna replied. “I am not in a hurry about adopting the kid, Mrs. Roberts.”

According to the agency that Mrs. Roberts refer, it would take not usually exceed six months to adopt a kid but they added that they can’t guarantee the duration but they’ll try their best.

“Hanna! There’s a phone call for you!” Her auntie shouted from the kitchen and Hanna went downstairs. It is Saturday and it’s Hanna’s day off. Her auntie always takes a visit by Saturdays but when she heard that her niece is going to adopt a kid, she always goes to her house like every single day.

“Hello?”

“Can I speak to Lee Hanna?” The other voice asked.

“This is Lee Hanna.” She replied.

“Oh,” the voice from the other line said. “Good Morning Ms. Lee, Ms. Bell told me to inform you that you are now eligible of adopting a child. Ms. Bell also informed me that you have already sent some files about the child you want to adopt. Correct me if I am wrong, Mam.”

“Yes. I have sent the information about Yohan. Do we have a conflict about adopting the kid?”

“Ms. Bell just finished reading the files and I was assigned to visit the orphanage by next week. Would you like to come with me, Ma’am?”

A week had passed since Hanna agreed on visiting the foster home and every time she visited the orphanage, she can’t help but to remember the first time she visited Paris. She, of course, can’t forget that she saw Sehun.

For a split moment, she thought that maybe because eight years had passed and the memory of Sehun is like a memory from yesterday she could only be imagining Sehun during that time. It is very impossible for Sehun to visit Paris but then she remembered that she don’t even know what happened to the guy. Is he fine by now? Is he staying for America in good? Is he back in Seoul?

Seoul. The name of her hometown sends a tingling pain in her heart. She misses home more than anything else. She can go back any time right now but she remembered that there’s a kid waiting for her in the foster home that she’s going to visit.

Did she really make a right choice for adopting the kid?

She doesn’t know. After the night she know she saw Sehun was the same day she first met Yohan and she found her crying under the Eiffel tower. She still doesn’t know how the kid reaches the place nor does she know why the kid called her, “Mama.”

“Nice to see you again, Nana!” Mrs. Roberts snapped her out of her thoughts. Hanna gives her a smile and they enter the orphanage.

“I’m sorry that Ms. Bell can’t be with us right now.” Mia said. Mia is the woman who called Hanna by phone last week. “By the way, my name’s Mia.” She extended her hands to Mrs. Roberts and the old woman gladly accepted it.

“I know Ms. Bell is really busy right now especially that Christmas is near.” Mrs. Roberts said. She opened the door to her office and she went somewhere behind her office. “Feel at ease.”

Hanna takes a sit in the chair in front of the desk of Mrs. Roberts and Mia followed. After a couple of minutes, Mrs. Roberts comeback with a tray and a tea. “So…” she opened up.

“We are here to inform you that Ms. Lee is eligible of adopting and we are here to make amends about the adoption of Yohan.”

“Congratulations Nana.” Mrs. Roberts said as she pours her cup. “There are no conflicts on adopting the kid I presume, she’s a healthy, beautiful and intelligent girl I’m afraid to admit. Nana is a lucky girl.”

No. I am lucky that I meet Yohan. She wanted to correct the lady in front of her. “Thank you, Mrs. Roberts.”

March 29, 2023

9:20AM KST; THURSDAY

Incheon International Airport

“Noona!” A voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She looked sideways and she found a sign board where her name is written.

 “Noona! Over here!”

The kid, who Hanna misses for ten years, is now a guy Hanna never thought, wave his hands in the air. For the split thought, she suddenly hate herself again for not going back home early. Ten years is a really long and the last time she saw Myungsoo, he is really young and she bet he barely remembers everything about their bonding moments. She sighs and pulled a smile to let him know she’s really happy to see him.

As she made her way to her now grown-up brother, she made a mental note to make a list of the things she hate about herself (which she just figure out the moment she saw her brother), and another list of things she thinks she needed to patch up and the first one is being a big sister to her brother, Lee Myungsoo.

“Thank you, aghussi.” Hanna whispered as the airport crew left with a bow when they reached Myungsoo. Hanna smiled at Myungsoo and gave her a big hug. “You are now a big man!” she patted her brother’s back awkwardly. “Wait a minute.” She said and she let go of her brother.

“Noona, who is she?”

“My daughter, isn’t she beautiful?” Hanna fixed the sleeping Yohan in her arms. She smiled at the kid as she remembered how the kid was excited to see Korea after a year of staying in London with her. “Auntie told me once in the phone that you have a kid and don’t tell me that the kid’s father is that Alexander?”

Hanna laughed out loud as she catches her brother’s expression when he let go of the name of the guy. Myungsoo’s expression could really the newest model for some anti-motility drug. “Of course not!” Hanna slapped her brother’s arm.

“So you lay an egg and wait for it to hatch a baby?”

“Are you seriously mocking on me or what?” Hanna looked at Myungsoo with disbelief and a look that she knows her brother is being sarcastic on her.

Myungsoo was about to said something and it is obvious that he is trying not to laugh at her. “Don’t try your jokes at me, Myungsoo. I bet Eomma told you about this.” Hanna intervenes and walks away.

“Hannie!” A deep voice shouted as they went reach the terminal end. Hanna didn’t seem to hear the voice and Myungsoo at her back was complaining at pulling the cart. “Noona! Did you carry your house from London to Seoul?”

“How I wish!” Hanna replied teasingly at Myungsoo as she looked over the terminal. “Taking a cab or someone’s with you here?”

 “Lee Hanna!” The same deep voice called her but in her full name. Hanna turns her gaze at the direction and she caught two guys standing few feet from her.

“Long time no see, Hann—”The deep voice was interrupted when Hanna jog towards them with a big smile on her smile. “Byun Baekhyun!” she said and she hugs Byun Baekhyun in a moment.

It’s been really long since the last time Hanna saw one of Sehun’s friends—and her friend too. Byun Baekhyun is the second guy who is closest to her as a friend. When she left Korea, all her connections in Seoul are cut. She can’t afford to call or text her friends like before, international charges are way too expensive. She barely signed herself on such social networking sites because she’s too busy on work. Not until she get a stable job and from there, she had manage to call her family twice at least a week.

Three years ago, when she was trying to call home, unexpectedly Baekhyun answered the phone. There, she felt like home was next to her door. She has been in touch with Baekhyun from then. It was Baekhyun, who gave her news that she missed.

                “Hannie~ah,” The deep voice tried to get her attention but Lee Hanna seemed to shut her ears on her right side. “It’s been ten years,” Baekhyun smiled at her. “Can I carry her? You look tired carrying this kid.”

                “Oh thank you.” Hanna exhales deeply and hand Yohan to Baekhyun. “Let’s go home?”

                “Noona?”

                “Hannie?”

                The other guys called her at the same time. Hanna looked at her back and told Myungsoo to put the things in the compartment. Baekhyun handed the baby to the tall and deep voice guy at his side. “I’ll help.” He said to Myungsoo. Hanna didn’t seem to mind the deep voice guy near her.

                “Hannie,” the deep voice reach for Hanna’s arms. Hanna tilted her head to the deep voice guy. “Yes?” she says. “Ah, Park Chanyeol, I didn’t saw you a moment ago.”

                “Are you mad at me?” Chanyeol answered her with a question back. He seemed to be serious at his question. Hanna stared at him for seconds before she replied, “Twenty seconds ago.”

                She takes a gulp as she remembered that she told herself that upon seeing Park Chanyeol, she should be mad at him but it seems her plan didn’t seem to get on her way. Seeing Park Chanyeol made her heart wanted to cry. She felt the wedding ring on her arms that reminded her of the reason why was she mad to Park Chanyeol.

                “Baek~ah, why did you call on this ungodly hour?” Hanna answered the phone in the middle of three in the morning. It was her second hour of sleeping and she needs to sleep because in few hours, she’s going back to work with an awaiting good or maybe a bad news for the company.

                “I’m sorry Hanna but I think you should know this.”

                “What is it?” Hanna rolled on the side of the bed with her eyes close. She doesn’t know how she managed to reach her phone on the bedside with her eyes close.

                “Your best friend, Park Chanyeol and your cousin, Kwon Alice is going to be married tomorrow.” Baekhyun revealed the news with a sigh. He knew of course that Hanna would open her eyes, really wide and she will be completely loss for words for three seconds before she can start blabbing at his ears. He counted three seconds and he is right.

Hanna’s a complete mess after three seconds.

“I think you know why I was mad at you.” Hanna decided to speak after a couple of silence. Myungsoo and Baekhyun are almost done packing her things in her compartment in the corner of her eye and Chanyeol seemed to realize a bit of the reason and he let go of Hanna. “I’m sorry.” He says breaking the eye contact with her.

“I know.” She replied stoically. “I was busy from work and you thought that maybe leaving a couple of days from work would be wrong but you were wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Baekhyun didn’t call me on the day before you get married I wouldn’t have known that you are married! I am your best friend and I can’t believe that I am the last person in the world to know about your special day and I remembered that you and Alice promised me that I am going to your bridesmaid!”

“Wait.” Chanyeol interrupted his best friend. He stared at her while blinking a couple of times. He thought that Hanna is maybe mad at her for not communicating with her and of course, about his wedding day that he didn’t exert effort for not having her on his day. “Is that why you are mad at me?”

“Yes!” Hanna exclaimed. “I really—“

“That’s so childish.” Chanyeol grin at her. “I asked for your phone number from Auntie a month before my wedding day to call you about you being a bridesmaid but you didn’t answer. I called you once again and you answered the phone and you only said, ‘I’ll call you back. I am busy.’

“I waited for your call for almost two weeks and you didn’t call back. I have decided to call you again. Two days before my wedding day, I told Baekhyun that about you not coming on my wedding day because you said that you are busy.”

“That’s not true!” Hanna tried to defend herself as she tries to ask help for Baekhyun who is just laughing behind Park Chanyeol. “Baekhyun told me that you are mad at me because I didn’t inform you about my wedding. Ah wait, actually I send a wedding invitation to London but I don’t know if that reaches you.”

“What?” Hanna baffled as she try to rack her thoughts of receiving any invitation from South Korea until she remembered her auntie.

“Nana, I received a wedding invitation from my door. It was address to you.” Her Auntie entered the living room where she caught Hanna sitting on the floor with her things are scattered all over the room. Her auntie put the invitation in the side table and she start picking Hanna’s things. “I really can’t imagine that you really adopt a kid when you are just too messy when working.”

“I’m going to fix that later.” Hanna replied as her eyes are still pinned in screen of her laptop.

Evening comes and her auntie left the house after she finished cooking. Hanna just finished rechecking all the reports. “Reports check. Hmm. Stretching my body, going to…checked.” She said as she put her hands up in the air and swing to her sides before letting her arms fall down into its own accord. She starts picking up her things one by one and she was about to leave the living room she notice a silver invitation on her bedside table.

“What’s this?” She murmured and she picked up the silver invitation. She was about to flip the invitation when somebody called on her telephone. “Hello?”

“Hi, uhm…”

The person who called her said something when her cellphone ring. She was about to leave her phone unattended but the caller was her boss. “I’m sorry,” She said interrupting the person from the other line. “Err~ this is not pizza delivery. Bye.”

“’This is not pizza delivery. Bye.’ That’s what you told me when I called you again by the ways.” Chanyeol said.

“Aish!” Hanna rolled her eyes on Chanyeol when he made a scenario about that pizza delivery thing.

“Actually I should be the one mad at you but of course, as your loving best friend I have said sorry in your part.

“Well, Park Chanyeol said ‘Apology Accepted’.” Chanyeol said as he quoted the last two words in the air.

Hanna smiled at him. She didn’t say anything back right away. As she stares at him longer, she notices how her best friend had changed. He is still the cheerful and happy Park Chanyeol she knew but something in the way her best friend stands and look back at her is different and she can’t figure it out yet.

“So…” Park Chanyeol rocks his eyebrows up and down.

“I’m sorry Channie.” Hanna grinned at him and gave him a big hug.

“Can you two guys get married again for the second time around?” Hanna whispered as she tightened her hug. “I really want to be your bridesmaid.”