Chapter 4 - Could This Be Fate? Part !!

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

The voices of her groupmates are somehow overshadowed by the ticking sound of the clock in the room. Minzy’s eyes cannot seem to leave the second needle as she silently counts every second that goes by. Five more minutes and she can finally go home.

“Minji, what do you think?” Namjoon, their group leader, asks.

Minzy, who is still stuck in her own world, seems not to hear a word he said and continues to stare at the clock intently. Namjoon follows her gaze and raises an eyebrow in curiosity. Why is she looking at the clock with such a serious facial expression? Is she, by any chance, counting down the time to end this meeting? Is the discussion too boring that she wants it to end so badly? Or does she have something urgent to attend to?

“Minji?”

Still, the girl ignores him.

“Ya, Gong Minji!” another student suddenly yells, finally getting the girl’s attention.

Minzy instantly snaps her head towards the group, her heart sinks a little when she notices the glares they are giving her. “H-huh?”

Namjoon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in slight frustration, “You weren’t listening, were you?”

Feeling rather guilty, she just gives her groupmates a faint smile while shaking her head innocently. Everyone just huffs. They have been talking non-stop, discussing the key elements when writing/composing a song, but everything seems to have entered one of Minzy’s ears, only to leave soon after through the other. This is so not her at all, to be honest. Minzy always pays attention in class or in group discussions, especially when the subject involved is music, or anything related to it.

“Minji, are you okay?” asks their leader again, genuinely concerned.

“M-me? Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know, but you really seemed out of it just now.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m perfectly fine,” Minzy reassures with a smile.

“Okay, if you say so,” Namjoon smiles back before turning his attention to the rest of the group, “Well, since one of us can’t seem to concentrate, why don’t we just call it a day? We’ll continue the discussion some other time,” he continues as he eyes Minzy jokingly.

Everyone immediately roars in delight. To be frank, other than Namjoon, the others did not really pay attention as well. But unlike Minzy, they did manage to absorb a bit, if not all, of the information from the one-hour long discussion. After packing their stuff up, one by one, the students bid their goodbyes and hurry out of the room.

“Seems like I was the only one eager to finish this project,” Namjoon chuckles as he watches the others leave the room merrily.

Guilt begins to rush all over Minzy’s body once again. It isn’t like she is not interested in the project, she is. She was actually looking forward to the discussion but somehow her mind kept on wandering somewhere else today, and she really does feel bad for him and their group.

“Hey, you’re not alone. I just got a bit distracted today but I promise that I’ll make it up to everyone in the next meeting,” she tries to comfort him.

“A bit?”

“Okay, maybe a lot.”

Namjoon, though, is still not convinced. He archs an eyebrow at her, as if he were waiting for her to confess to a crime she did. He is not angry with her, not at all. He just likes to sometimes.

“Okay, fine! I was completely distracted the entire time. There, you happy?”

Namjoon just laughs his heart out, causing the poor girl to tilt her head and pouts in confusion. There she thought the leader was mad at her but here he is, laughing with all his might. This is one of the reasons why he enjoys teasing her. The way she pouts her lips and those little wrinkles on her forehead whenever she frowns make her look very adorable. Minzy is cute when she is annoyed. Well at least, that is what he thinks.

Thanks to Namjoon, who decided to annoy the daylight out of her today out of all the seven days of the week, Minzy reaches her home a bit late. Now she only has around half an hour to get ready. Great. Discarding her initial plan of having a long, relaxing bath, she resorts to a quick shower instead. Thankfully, she has already prepared what she is going to wear the night before. Hey, don’t judge. She is just being overexcited, that’s all.

Amazingly, Minzy manages to get ready in exactly thirty minutes. Well, it is quite normal actually. She never really spends that much time getting ready anyways. The longest time she has taken was probably just around forty minutes. Hey, that was not all that bad, right? One last look at the mirror and giving herself a self-motivation, she is ready to go.

Just when her hand is about to turn the round knob of her door though, the doorbell rings. She freezes on her spot for a second, quite startled, before proceeding to open the door.

“Noona!” a little boy shouted almost too happily, hugging her right leg tightly as if she were going to run away or something.

A smile instantly appears on her face once she notices the boy’s happy face. Kim Jinwoo, a six-year old boy who never fails to warm her heart with all his silly antics. He is the only son of Kim Mina, the lady who lives just above Minzy’s apartment. Being a single mother, Mina has to struggle between two or three different jobs in order to earn money to meet their everyday necessities.

At first, she had hired a nanny to look after her son but in time, money became an issue. Being a good Samaritan as she is, Minzy one day volunteered to look after Jinwoo when his mother needed to be away. Ever since then, it has already become a regular for the boy to be in Minzy’s care. She really does not mind even though she sometimes has to sacrifice a lot of her free time. She has really grown to love the kid.

“Minji-ya, eonnie is very sorry. My boss just called and she needs me to fill in for a co-worker who has fallen sick,” Mina begs with a little bit of aegyo; like mother, like son – they really know how to make a good use of their aegyo.

“But eonnie, I-”

“Noona, please~” Oh god, now it is the boy’s turn to bombard her with his aegyo – how can Minzy say no to that?

“Okay, okay. I’ll take him.”

“Thank you, Minji-ya! I promise I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be back around ten so you guys have fun while I’m gone. And be careful!”

With that, Mina rushes towards the elevator without even looking back. Minzy can only chuckle. Sometimes she feels like she is older than Mina when in fact, she is almost eight years younger than her. Mina can be quite immature at times, but there is no doubt that she is a very good mother. Just look at how she sacrifices a lot for her son. That woman would work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week if she could. All she wants is the best for Jinwoo.

“Noona, are we going out?”

Right, she almost forgot about the little boy. Minzy kneels down so that she is eye-level with the kid and smiles. “Yes, we are and we are going to have lots and lots of fun!”

“Yay! Jinwoo is going on a date with noona!” the boy exclaims excitedly causing her to giggle.

“Come on, let’s go.”

Minzy and Jinwoo walk together hand-in-hand to the bus stop and hop on a bus which will take them to the Han River Park. The ride only takes around fifteen minutes or so as they live not that far away from the area. Minzy looks at her wristwatch as soon as they step down from the bus and gasps. She is running late! She begins to panic and without thinking any further, she drags the poor boy almost forcefully towards a café. She is not a late person, not even close. She has always been punctual but today, she might just break her own record. And it all thanks to that stupid Namjoon. 

She is panting heavily when they enter the café, so is Jinwoo. Poor kid. The waiter at the front desk is a bit taken aback but he greets her with manners nonetheless. Customers are still customers, no matter how weird they are. It is his job to treat them with respect.

“Annyeonghaseyo, welcome to our café. Have you made any reservations, ma’am?”

Minzy flinches a bit at the sound of the word ma’am. She is no way near a ma’am, she thinks. But then she realises that she is with Jinwoo and the waiter probably thinks that he is hers. Oh well, whatever. She just shrugs it off and informs the waiter about the reservation, which, oddly, makes the waiter beam from ear to ear.

“Follow me, ma’am. Your husband is already waiting for you.”

Wait, what? Did he just say… husband? What husband? Since when did she has a husband? Did she happen to get married to a stranger when she was drunk or something? No, that is impossible. Definitely impossible. Minzy doesn’t even drink.

A lot of questions come running into her mind as she follows the waiter, smiling half-heartedly, but everything is forgotten as soon as she spots a man sitting at the table they are approaching. He seems rather… familiar.

Oh my god!

“Oh, it’s Mr. Responsible!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

Author's Note: I know, I know. Another cliffhanger. Please don't kill me. :/ Haha! It's a rather short chapter but I hope you still enjoyed it. But don't worry, there will be more Minzy-Yongguk interaction in the next xhapter! Hee hee. And say YO! if you know who Namjoon is. ;D

Story by: afagyel | Poster and background by: Tomoe Graphic Shop