[continue where we left off....]

“Umma, what are you doing here?” Changmin approached the elder woman, she was dressed elegantly with French tied bum on her hair and her handbag showed her in her taste in fashion. She turned to him as she heard his voice.

“Son…so good to see you.” She leaned and pecked her son’s cheek, a casual gesture, tender touch showing her love to him. Changmin just let it passed despite some of the eyes were on him.

“I thought I already told you not to come.” That came out as a whine instead of a warning to his mother.

“I was bored, so I thought of visiting my beloved son. Omo, omo, omo, you look so good in that.” She pointed at her son’s doctor coat, clearly proud of him. Not being able to deny her, he took her hand and escorting her like a polite gentleman as he linked her hand on his arm.

“Alright umma, you win. You already see me and I’m doing well, and you’re healthy, so you don’t need to be here anymore. Let me call the driver and send you home alright? I need to continue with the work here.” And he was almost succeeding with the mission of making his mother leave, if only she didn’t stop so abruptly.

“Wait! I know what you’re trying Shim Changmin, you’re trying to make me leave, but let me tell you this young man, it’s not going to work that easily.”

“You caught me huh?!”

“I’m your mother, I know you even before you were born.”

“So what do you want?” He admitted defeat, knew she had something going on to come out of here out of a sudden.

“A lunch date.”

“What? With who? You umma? But we see each other every week. What’s the occasion?”

“Not with me silly, the son of a famous attorney.”

Changmin sighed, clearly this is one of the talks that he would try to avoid the most with his mother. “Come on umma, you know how do I feel about these sort of things. It’s not going to work you know.”

“You’ve been denying all the girls I’ve ever set you up with before, so I learnt from my mistakes and decided to take whatever you prefer, that’s why I set you up with the Attorney Park’s son.” He made a disapproving face to her.

“Yes, I know, you don’t like going to blind date but won’t you go this time? For me?” There she showed him her ultimate weapon, the same doe-bambi eyes that she passed on to him, pleading him in a way she knows how, not even his father are able to resist.

Changmin swore if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t ever agreed to such a thing, but he agreed to anyway. “When is it?” He finally asked, clearly sound defeated.

“On your next day-off.” Her voice brightens in delight. “I’ve already arranged the date and the place, just come and dressed nicely, understand?” She smiled her wicked smile, revealing her full luscious lips, another traits inherited to her son.

“You were planning these from the whole beginning, weren’t you?” Changmin let out an exasperated humph, understanding very well how his mother behavior.

“I never come unplanned, aren’t I?” She laughed the last part, before her heels and walked out the hospital glass door by herself, putting on her expensive shade before entered the waiting car outside.

Changmin sighed in relieved as she was finally gone. Something about the arranged blind date had made him a little bit bother. He never thought of starting anything now, not when he knows for a fact that he’s a failure, failure in a relationship, the fact that he couldn’t even handle a proper relationship with anyone, when it is involved romantically. He vowed to himself the day he signed the divorce paper was the day he admitted the fact that relationship don’t do so well with him.   

“Chief, we never had a welcoming party for us trainer. Should we throw one?” A suggestion came in on one fine day, by Minho as he and the rest of the intern lingered in their office lodge. It was an unusual relax day for the ER team, maybe all the citizens decided not to get sick for one day which made all the new doctors a bit free than usual, taking care only the current patients, no emergency call or anything.

“Sounds like a great idea.” The chief smiled over his younger subordinate’s suggestion. Sure, a small get together, they haven’t even done it once even when the interns was already almost two months in that department. .

Later that evening, in a restaurant,

“Alright, now let’s do some cheer, shall we?” Minho holds up his glass and brought it to his front, as the rest of the people along the round table brought their drinks up,

“On what?” One of the interns asked.

“For being here, and finally able to have our first dinner together, for us.”

“For us!!” The rest of the crowd cheered as the clinked their glasses together.

“You kid had gone through a lot, for keeping treating those patient with the greatest amount of care, good work. It will only be getting more harder from now on, so keep on working the way things are now, so here’s for the future. The future.” The chief talked as he lifted his glass, proposing for another toast which was well accepted by the rest of the group.

“To the future!!!!”

Another clink of the glasses.

“CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!” Another group of people from the next table cheered, louder than theirs. They exchanged glanced from each other when Changmin noticed a familiar faces from the next table, they blinked.

 “You again” Yunho snickered.

“You two know each other? Someone you know?” His assistance asked, as he noticed the eye contact shared by the two.

“No, it’s nobody.” He quickly retort back as soon as the other break the eye contact, might as well act like stranger, those two thought.

Changmin walked pass the other in the bathroom, pretending like he didn’t see the other.

Yunho continued washing his hand as he saw the other’s reflection from the mirror as Changmin proceed with the purpose of going there in the first place.

“So you and the guy… the one that seat next to you…” Yunho’s voice lingered there a bit longer, thinking over again and again whether he should ask or not,                   

“Are you two dating? You were together back then in the supermarket too, isn’t it?” He wiped his hand dry using the handkerchief that he pull out from his pocket pants as he eyes still trailed on the other.

“Why, are you jealous?” His voice sounded casual, he remembered how Yunho always got overly possessive over the interaction he shared with others, sometime there are things that never changed and Changmin dare that this is one of them. He was done with his business and went to the available sink next to Yunho to wash his hand, smirk plastered all over his face, amused by the other question.

“No. Why would I be? I’m just curious if you two are together, that’s all.”

“Then I don’t really have to answer it right? Because I don’t think the sole reason of you being curious is enough to let you know whether I’m taken or not. Besides, it’s not like you’re hitting on me, are you.” He pulled some tissue out of the box and dried his hand before throwing them into the bin.

“It’s not like I care, I just wonder, did your friends here know, about the divorce?”Yunho continued asking. Changmin sensed like there’s a hint of threaten from the tone he was going with this, like he would go out there all told all their colleagues that they were married before.

“Then what about you? Did your friends know that you have been married before?” Changmin turned and properly face Yunho, arms crossed defensively.

“No. Of course not.”  Yunho encountered back, he felt a tinch of insecurity deep down with the way the conversation was heading. No matter how you look at it, society don’t take divorce couple as a part of the community, they used to look down on people that had been married but break-up in the end. It’s no wonder why he or even Changmin hide that fact from the public.

“Naturally….” Changmin’s voice lingering there for a while before continued, “why would you let anyone know about that, right?” he agreed as he broke the eyes contact from Yunho. The crossed arms were loosen and Changmin let them slide to his sides, falling as eyes trailing down to the marble tiles on the floor,

“It wasn’t that long after all, 10 months is nothing.” There was a sad monotone in there despite how he tried to act cool and Yunho couldn’t help to notice. Changmin left the toilet first before even waiting for any reaction from the other, while Yunho stood there frozen, it wasn’t nothing. Yunho thought. At least, he wanted to believe that they did loved one another before all that happen. If…just maybe he had taken the situation back then more seriously and wasn’t so in rush with his decision in letting go, he couldn’t help to wonder….where would they stand today…..

As Yunho finally settled back onto his seat, a loud sound of broken plates hitting the floor, in the dining hall, ruckus causing by a new waiter.

“cring” the sound of the plates catering on the floor, a waiter accidentally dropped them on the floor as some rude customer, purposely bump into him. He looked tense and was barely holding up his temper as he looked at the customer, before he could even reacted, his boss came and smacked him once.

“Apologize to the customer, you was the one who did wrong.” He stared at the boss, protesting over the order.

“But I….”

“O-ho, now you can even answering back.“ The customer exchanges glance with the boss. “Is this how you train your worker here? The service is bad, and the food is lame too. You’re not going to hold on much longer.” The customer mocked more.

Feeling defeated over the situation, the waiter bo