-----

 

An unknown feeling stirred inside Seung-hyun as he left Bom’s cluttered apartment. His chest was tight, his throat, dry. He raggedly dragged his tie down from his neck and tossed it at the back of his car. This was a foreign emotion, one he could barely make out of. Perhaps he had already felt it once or twice before, when Bom told him she was having lunch with some handsome, note worthy fashion designer, but it’s been so long that the emotion seemed indiscernible.

 

“Baby?!”  Seung-hyun exclaimed furiously, letting off his steam before starting his car’s engine. “Yah, PARK BOM, it’s only been one year. How can you replace me already? And with some metroual loser who’s SHORTER than you?!”

 

He pouted childishly as he slumped onto the steering wheel. Seung-hyun thought of his monologue seriously. Why did he feel so enraged? He was no longer her husband. If anything, he should have been happy that Bom had found someone to fall in love with; but the thought disgusted him.

 

Beneath the dense structure of Seung-hyun’s mind, he was just truly, utterly, repulsively, jealous.

-----

Flashback

 

From: Bommie

I’m out right now for a lunch meeting.

With a really HANDSOME client! ALONE! What should I do?!

 

“Tsk. Such a flirt.” Seung-hyun thought as he typed on his desktop keyboard noisily. He’s only been two months in his job as part of the business development team at the real estate company of his dreams. Starting at the bottom of the corporate ladder, he’s been doing nothing but administrative work for the team, thus leaving his imaginations running wild as Bom, the angel he met recently at his favorite coffee shop, met with prospective clients for their fashion house.

 

 

From: Seung-hyun

Do your job.

 

“Yah, Seung-hyun, don’t attack the keyboard.” His teammate and fellow newbie, Lee Seung Ri, commented as he watched the big guy who was aggressively keying property offers into an archive.

 

Seung-hyun glanced at his phone. Five minutes have passed. Why wasn’t the girl replying? Could Bom have been molested by the guy? Or kidnapped? Or… or…

 

He sighed at his praiseworthy imagination. Truth be told, Seung-hyun didn’t even need to know where Bom was. He wasn’t her nanny, or dad, or boyfriend. They were barely friends in calendar days—two months meant hardly even acquaintances.

 

One hour.

 

Two hours.

 

Three hours.

 

No reply from Bom.

 

The clock had already struck five thirty, and since work was light that day at the office, Seung-hyun decided to go home. No, he wasn’t going to give into his imagination. Bom was just probably enjoying herself too much with the handsome.fashion.designer. Seung-hyun was thinking that the guy was in the likes of G-dragon—manly fashionistas with the captivating smile and the charming aura.

 

K.

 

Seung-hyun walked to the lobby, where sets of eyes gawked at his exit. He was aware that some girls from the office fancied him; not tha he knew why, nor did he care. He was having a bad day and all the guy wanted to do was go home and eat chips while watching Hannibal.

 

“Pssssssst!” Someone said from behind Seung-hyun, who was logging his id number on a machine which recorded the time in and out of the company employees. He furrowed his brows, but kept his attention at the machine. He was just in that anti-social mood. After the machine recognized his id number, the tall guy went hurriedly to the parking lot, not bothering to acknowledge whoever it was who tried to approach him.

 

Finally, Seung-hyun made it to his car which was parked at the open parking space for the company’s employees. As he tried to fish the car key from his coat pocket, he felt his phone vibrating.

 

From: Bommie

Bad day? You look mad.

 

Right after he finished reading the text message, a hand swooped in his line of sight, carrying in its grip Seung-hyun’s favorite coffee flavored donut.

 

“For you.” Bom smiled cheerfully as Seung-hyun tilted his head to face her. “It’s the coffee donut! I think it’s your favorite donut because you always buy this one when we’re at the café.”

 

Seung-hyun looked quizzically at Bom who stared at him empathically although she didn’t know why. He tried to hide the happiness he felt at the gesture, but the fact that she remembered which donut he liked had already melted the cold exterior he wanted to portray. He got the donut from her hand and stuttered while saying,“t-thanks.”

 

Why was he mad at her again? At that point, Seung-hyun had totally forgotten about the handsome fashion designer.

 

Bom stretched her right hand near Seung-hyun’s face.

 

“What’s that?” Seung-hyun asked.

 

“What? You think donuts grow on trees? Pay me!” Bom teased, waving her hand close to Seung-hyun’s face.

 

“No way, have it back!” he pushed the donut towards Bom, accidentally hitting her left cheek with some of the coffee frostings.

 

“What?! So ungrateful!” Bom remarked loudly, grabbing the donut away. “Fine! I was only joking but if you really didn’t want this in the first place, I’ll eat it by myself!”

 

“DON’T. YOU. DARE.” Seung-hyun replied, biting majority of the coffee donut off of Bom’s grasp. As he bit the donut, coffee frostings hit his nose. Bom laughed at his face, as he now looked like Rudolph the brown nosed reindeer. Seung-hyun broke into laughter as well, smudging the coffee frosting on Bom’s face.

 

“That’s more like it!” Bom pinched his cheeks. “If the girls at your office could see you this happy, they’d fall in love with your charms even more.”

 

It was just then that Seung-hyun realized it was Bom who tried to approach her earlier.

 

“Seung-hyun, people look best when they’re happy.” Bom said, getting a tissue from her bag and wiping off the frosting from Seung-hyun’s nose. “Although they seemed to like it when you were grumpily stomping your way off the office.”

 

“I seem to have that effect on girls.” Seung-hyun raised his brows smugly, stopping Bom’s hand from wiping any more frosting on his face. “You, stop doing everything for other people. And…”

 

He got the tissue, turning it on its clean side so he could wipe the frosting off Bom’s cheek. “Sometimes, let people do things for you instead.”

 

“Tsk. So cheeky!” Bom replied.

 

“You should have told me you were going to the office.” Seung-hyun added.

 

“Waeyo?”

 

“So I could’ve introduced you to the girls at the office a while ago.” He answered.

 

“There’s no need, it’s not like I’m your girlfriend or anything.”

 

Yeah, pabo. Why would you need to introduce her? Seung-hyun felt his random musings getting the better of him. Sometimes he just says the most inappropriate things in the most inappropriate times.

 

 

-----

He continued to pout, still unmoving. Seung-hyun had a bad habit of driving dependently on his emotions. If he started driving his car now, he’d probably speed up as he was still furious, and who knows what could happen to him then.

 

As he was thinking, someone knocked on the passenger side window. It was Bom, with a donut in her hand.

 

Seung-hyun looked at him quizzically. Why was this moment nostalgic? He pushed the button which automatically rolled down the window on the passenger’s side. “What?”

 

“Don’t ‘what?’ me. I know that look when I see it.” Bom said, stretching her left hand which had the donut. “I don’t really care why you’re furious, but seeing that you are, and me being the last passenger, I don’t want to be blamed if you suddenly drive yourself off the bridge or something.”

 

She was also referring to Seung-hyun’s habit.

 

“So?” Seung-hyun asked, still pissed off. “Is that donut supposed to make me feel better?’

 

Pabo, of course it will. You’re totally blowing up your cover. Seung-hyun thought.

 

“Then fine, just don’t blame me if you get into an accident.” Bom supposed, withdrawing her hand away from Seung-hyun.

 

Seung-hyun grabbed her hand before it went out of the window. He bit off a large fragment of the donut, grinning as he did because he was slowly starting to remember a vague memory of him and Bom acting the same way they did now.

 

“Yah, what do you think you’re doing?!” Bom tried to wiggle her hand away from Seung-hyun’s grasp, thus scrambling coffee frostings all over Seung-hyun’s face. She tried to hide her smile, but Seung-hyun had seen it all too vividly. Why was he mad again?

 

“YAH! You got frosting all over my face!” Seung-hyun uttered in a muffled voice as he was still swallowing the donut. He was laughing hard now.

 

Bom forced herself into coldness. “Get your hand off mine please, Seung-hyun shi.”

 

Seung-hyun nodded. He had the picture of her smiling a while ago engraved into his mind, that was more than enough to satisfy him. “Wait, Bom.”

 

Bom took her hand out of the car, furrowing her brows at Seung-hyun. “What.”

 

After he cleaned his dirty face with his handkerchief, he told her “you remember. Thank you.”

 

He then pushed a button at his side which rolled up the window again. That was enough giddiness for one day, Seung-hyun had to contain himself and stop there before he explodes into care bears and powerpuff girls. He revved up the engine and slowly drove away.

 

Remember what the ajumma told you. Take things slow. Seung-hyun reflected, remembering some hefty advice given to him.

Flashback

 

“Ajumma, she left for America.” Seung-hyun sighed defeatedly as he drank a cup of coffee from his favorite café. Since his divorce with Bom, the guy found solace with frequenting the café to talk to the ajumma who rooted for him and Bom. “I don’t know, I think I should follow her and profess my feelings or something.”

 

The ajumma grinned at Seung-hyun. “You are truly young! So impulsive!”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Give her some time.” She advised. “Time to realize what she’s missing.”

 

“Or time to find someone new.” Seung-hyun added grimly.

 

“Aigoo, you have no confidence in your ex-wife.” The ajumma observed. “And you definitely don’t have confidence in yourself. The fact that she left Korea, doesn’t that mean you still affect her too much that she has to be away from you?”

 

“You mean…”

 

“Seoul is too small for you two not to bump into each other. Don’t you think the reason why she left for America was to distance herself from you because she can’t stand being around you AND not be affected by you?”

 

“This is…. Hard for me to understand.” Seung-hyun was confused.

 

“Pabo. She still has feelings from you! That’s why she had to leave! If she stayed, she would have been swayed and would have stopped the divorce altogether, don’t you think?!”

 

“Then why did she have to file for divorce to begin with?”

 

“Well that’s something I certainly don’t know. But you have to figure that out, genius.” The ajumma sipped a cup of tea, allowing Seung-hyun to reflect on what she had just said. “Give her some time for herself, don’t smother her with affection. You’ll only confuse her more.”

 

“Hmm.” Seung-hyun tried to comprehend.

 

“And I mean it young man! If you want her back, you have to take things slow! She wouldn’t have wanted the divorce if the reason isn’t serious. So you shouldn’t make her feel like her decision of divorcing you was right. If you smother her desperately with affection, to the point that it’s scary—and trust me it’s going to be scary, she would certainly feel that it was the right thing to divorce you. Got it?”

 

“Got it.” Seung-hyun replied, mentally noting what the ajumma had just told him.

-----

“What the heck, Bommie. That was the Seung-hyun, a.k.a. your ex-husband?!” John exclaimed as Bom entered her apartment. “WHAT THE HECK! WHY DID YOU DIVORCE SUCH A FINE MAN!”

 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Bom replied as she looked at the hand Seung-hyun grabbed.

 

“How come you were together?” CL asked apprehensively.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

 

“You even gave him a donut.” Dara added. “I didn’t know you guys kept in contact. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I had an ex-husband. You’re so cool Bommie!!”

 

“YAH! I said I didn’t want to talk about it right?!”

------

“Ajumma, she’s back!” Seung-hyun exclaimed excitedly as he approached the familiar ajumma who frequented the café. “She’s really back!”

 

“Didn’t I tell you she’d come back one day?” the old woman chirped as sipped the cup of tea. “And, how was she?”

 

Seung-hyun’s smile was ear to ear now. “I don’t know for sure. But I definitely feel that she still likes me.”

 

“So what are you going to do now?”

 

“Of course. I’ll get her back!” Seung-hyun said confidently.

 

 

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A/N: What do you think? Thank you for subscribing and leaving your comments! You may also leave a personal message if you have suggestions for the plot! :) I really enjoy interaction with people who read my work :D 

 

While I was writing this, I felt that it should be a transitional chapter. Although I am sorry for the haphazard writing style. I think my mind was all over the place because I've been sick for one week now (yeap, I was also sick when I posted the last chapter). Then again I really felt like writing so here comes the end product. I hope you still enjoy though, as I did.