CHAPTERTWO   

 

"I'll go get that coffee for you, hwejang-nim*."

 

Minhee had blurted it out of instinctively. ANYTHING to get out of that cursed office and its cursed atmosphere. Even if it meant walking a ten minute trip all the way to the other side of the neighborhood and back just for a hot cup of coffee.

"GAH."

For the fiftieth time, Minhee spontaneously stopped in her tracks to sound a mix of groans and angry squeals while pulling at her hair in frustration. Thank God she was outside the SMT building where nobody she knew could see her. Her normally neat, brown curls were now equivalent to what a bird's nest would look like after a 10.0 earthquake. She definitely wasn't a pretty sight to even the strangers walking through the same streets.

But really, at that moment, Minhee couldn't care less about what other people thought of her. She would gladly scream and dance like a mad woman for all she cared.

Byun Baekhyun had just appeared before her eyes. Nothing... nothing could get any worse than that.

Minhee burst into another fit of frustrated squeals and kicks into the air.

"Why, WHY does he have to be here of all places?!"

It had been the most painful few seconds back then at the office. The two had just kind of stared at each other for a bit, as if saying 'Why are YOU here.' While Minhee didn't exactly remember how she had reacted or what kind of expression she had made during those few seconds (although she was pretty sure she had looked unsettled, much to her despair), she definitely had seen how Baekhyun had looked. He had been equally as shocked as she had been.

Why wouldn't he be? He had seen his ex for the first time in three years.

"Ugh."

Minhee stopped walking and pulled out her phone, her eyes full of fire. She just couldn't hold all this fury inside of her any longer.

"I. Must. Call. Jieun."

The girl had hastily typed in the first three numbers to her best friend's number when she suddenly stopped. After a few moments of silence, she sighed.

"No...." Minhee put her phone back in her purse. "You shouldn't be like this, Song Minhee... You don't care about him anyways. He's not worth taking a phone call with Jieun." She huffed and put her hands on her hips. "He was worth nothing to you starting from a long time ago!"

The girl didn't seem to notice how her voice was getting louder and louder.

"And he still is. Who cares if he works at the same place as you do?! That's his problem, not yours. There's no reason to react like this!" With a deep breath, the girl quickly straightened up and crossed her arms, her chin up. It wasn't long before a calm, confident expression appeared on her face again.

"You're way beyond that stage, Song Minhee. Be calm. Oriented. Yes, oriented. Let's be oriented."

So oriented she was for the rest of the trip to Starbucks and back. Even when ordering, Minhee was oriented. With a confident voice, a calm expression, and her high heels practically stomping their way through, it was as if she was born to order coffee. No one else could've ordered a cup of coffee as orientedly as how Song Minhee did.

 

It was a wonder how such orientation could fall with a single text message.

 

Let's talk for a bit.

Minhee almost dropped her phone in surprise. The numbers that appeared as the sender were all to familiar to forget, which suddenly made the action of erasing this contact three years ago as pointless as a potato.

Byun Baekhyun.

After a few moments of mind-processing what she had just seen, Minhee gasped and quickly brought her phone screen right up to her eyes to reread the text over and over again. It was as if she was trying to convince herself that the five words were real and solid.

They were.

"Let's talk for a bit." She recited incredulously. "Let's talk for a bit?! LET'S?!" She scoffed a loud 'Ha!' out loud, causing the people around her to give her strange looks.

"Since when did we become a 'LET'S'?! We were always meant to be separate! He was he and I was just me. There's no such thing as a 'LET'S'!"

"And how does he even know my number?! Wasn't he supposed to erase mine like I erased his?!"

"Does that mean he still has interest in me?! Is he trying to start something again?!"

"Like HELL I would care! I'm not even INTERESTED in this text! Does he think I'm some stupid girl that actually gets emotional over a single text?! Does he think I'm actually going to have trouble on how to answer it?! That IDIOT."

"Jesus Christ. How am I even supposed to answer this."

When Minhee was done with her mini self-conversation (which earned a LOT of strange looks from people and a fraction of the coffee in her hands to spill), she was holding her phone with both hands, as if what she was about to do required extra-careful work. The half-empty coffee cup was forgotten by now, and so was work itself, which was still a few minutes away.

Minhee blew on her bangs.

Alright, then. Where? When?

She hovered over the send button, only to delete everything the next second while muttering, "No, that sounds too eager... as if I was actually waiting for his text."

She tried again.

About what?

"No. That'll probably go unanswered."

Alrighty.

"Ew no."

Okiedoke.

"Oh my God, no."

Okay.

Minhee blinked at the single four-lettered word that she typed on her phone screen. After a few moments of pondering, she decided it was fine. Her thumb moved over the send button.

"Wait."

She looked at the screen again.

"Too long."

In the end, the text message was sent as a 'K'.

 

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It took a long time for Baekhyun to reply back. Not that it disappointed Minhee or anything, she just had another reason to be in an incredulously annoyed mood full of scoffs and glares.

By the time Minhee had arrived back at the office, it had been almost an hour. (She had to go back to Starbucks to buy another cup of coffee to replace the half-empty one.)

Half-relieved to reached the end of the tiresome coffee trip and half-despaired that she now had to face sitting across Byun Baekhyun, Minhee walked into th