The rain has finally died down to a light drizzle. Yoona somehow manages to close the umbrella as she steps into the café. She sort of stumbles in with her folders and documents in her arm while staying busy - talking on the phone, and is grateful that the café owner (she now knows by name), opens the door for her.

“Hello Yoona” the owner greets and is replied to briefly with a smile and an attempted wave when the customer tries her best to raise her hand.

“So I will finalise it and get it sent over as soon as possible. Thank you very much Mr Lee”

Finally she is able to reply with a proper greeting

“Good morning Shin Hye unnie, looking good today despite the weather.” They walk over to the counter where a tall man just finishes placing his order.

“Yeah it’s pretty bad isn’t it?”

“Hello Oppa” she directs the call at the man now making coffee. He returns the greeting with just as much enthusiasm for such a gloomy day.

“The usual?” Geun Suk asks as he makes the order.   

She barely pays attention to the guy who is now standing in front of the pickup counter. But she cannot help noticing the oddness of his expression and aura in such a sweet atmosphere among the smell of vanilla beans, coffee and delightfulness. He focuses on his phone, with such attention it awes her. There is a no nonsense feel about him. It is especially that way with his business attire - button down shirt and dress pants with a coat hanging on his arm. Yoona decides against waiting near the pickup counter so she stays in her spot, pretending to be intrigued by the display of today’s cake selection. But Yoona’s own phone notification tone goes off. It’s a text, and her first instinct (like always) is to look at it.

She should be used to it now, the sudden request to change plans by the clients. After all, planning for the most important event in your life stresses you out, grows on your indecisiveness and blurs your natural common senses and instincts. But there are (split) moments she forgets her job. She is, taken aback by yet changing back to the original theme which was changed twice last week and once again just yesterday.  

“What?” she cannot help but exclaim under her breath. Now she is the one too immersed, brushing her hair behind her ear. She remains collected but the adrenaline rushing through her hints otherwise.

Changmin looks up from the draft proposal document on his phone and merely glances at the girl who is now typing furiously at her phone. He watches as she mutters something about two days incoherently under her breath and presses the phone to her ear.

“Sooyoung unnie, did you get the message that the Han wedding needs another theme change?”

“Tiffany unnie forwarded it to me. Calm down first unnie. Did she tell you why? I think she’s just stressed out from the wedding preparations. I’ll get through to her” In less than a second she is on her second phone call.

After picking up his order, Changmin merely shrugs and passes Yoona without sparing anything more than a mere glance as he heads to the exit. Perhaps it is out of the norm for her, so that she notices out of the corner of her eye, the way he ignored the glass jar and box filled with mini card-tags beside the pick-up counter.  

When she makes her way outside the café with everything in hand, she is still persuading the client to keep the wedding the way she wants it herself and not to change it merely from the words of her in-laws. She reasons to the client that she should persist because the day is hers. Seeing Taeyeon unnie’s car parked in front of the café, she sighs in relief as she opens the door (with much difficulty) and clambers into the car, bringing her documents and bag of samples in with her. Seeing Taeyeon raising a hand out of the corner of her eye and trying to stop her conversation, Yoona brushes her off, holds the seatbelt in place with her hand and continues talking until… She finally ends the call, successfully getting the bride to keep her original decision and was about to turn to her unn-

***

Changmin ends the call and gets ready to drive off, just before he turns the ignition on. He turns to the passenger seat with widened eyes as the car door opens and lets in a rush of cool air from outside. He does not make a move until the female settles down in the seat beside him in HIS car and watches as she places the things she was carrying, into her lap. She is still on the phone in a conversation. Changmin raises a hand, about to tell her that she has probably made mistake.  He tries waving but is nevertheless brushed off by her without even sparing a glance. She even prepares to faster her seatbelt.  Using the rejected hand to cover his mouth in a fist, he sighs deeply looking out at the activity of the streetscape after checking his watch for the umpteenth time. He has lost count on how many times he hears the sentence ‘It is your day. You decide not them’ pop up in the conversation since she joined his side (without invitation).  He decides to just try to ignore the situation and enjoy the coffee he had just purchased from a random café on the side of the road.

“That’s right. Stress does no good for a bride to be. Now breathe, relax and look forward to your special day.” Yoona smiles and ends the call.

“Sorry Taeyeon un-” It is the moment Changmin had been waiting for. He hears the clack of the seatbelt against its usual resting spot in his car after she lets go of it. He masks his amusement well behind his usual expression that reveals nothing to the outside world. But he prepares himself, turning his upper body to face her direction completely as the moment strikes. 

For a moment, she completely freezes, her doe eyes wide as ever. Her brain catches up a little as she turns her head in panic to take in her surroundings. The usual cute car accessories are absent. And the guy sitting across from her is certainly not Taeyeon unnie. She grimaces as if she had been hit by something. Slowly closing her eyes, she tries to hide herself from reality or rather hiding reality from herself, and squeezes them shut tighter. She bites the inside of her lips before opening her eyes with an embarrassed (and self-scorning) giggle.  But she regrets the decision to open them as her own eyes meet the intensity of the pair of dark, deep ones belonging to him. She finds herself unable to decipher any meaning from his gaze, only feeling the gravity of the deepness of his eyes. Her awkward laughter dissipates, not helping in easing the atmosphere at all. However, his body language and facial expression does the job anyway, or so she interprets the signals he is sending -  she is not very welcome (he does not want her here). He breaks the eye contact and looks at his watch, adjusting it – perhaps impatiently to Yoona.

“Miss, I believe you’re in the wrong car.”  He says as a matter of fact-ly without taking his eyes off her. he seems the same as the first impression he gave her back in the café. No nonsense. The sentence feels blunter to Yoona than it should have. But it is indeed the truth. She avoids looking at him, but when she does take a peek she immediately retracts her line of vision at the intensity of his gaze or rather the mysterious power of his eyes.

“I am so so so sorry” she looks down at her fingers which are now knitted together. She peeks up once again, there is no change of expression – though he was expressionless to begin with.  There are still no clues on what he is actually thinking that is diffusing through.

“I mistook this for my unnie’s car. She has the same one. SO sorry for the trouble I caused” she bows a little - more than most people can manage in that awkward posture in the passenger seat, upper body straining to the left to face the driver however she does it effortlessly. Taking another peek at his eyes, perhaps it is an illusion but they have seemed to soften for a moment.

“it’s fine” he says indifferently.

“Have a nice day” she manages a more comfortable smile before she turns and reaches for the door handle in a flustered fashion.  

Changmin watches as she turns and her dark brown locks face him. There is an almost unnoticeable stirring somewhere in his long forgotten emotions as he watches as she leaves him. But he decides to ignore it and tries to do a mental run-through of points of the meeting he was about to attend as he begins to drive off. He glances at the time on the screen, confirming that he still has time. An image of the silly incident flashes in his mind a few moments after driving away. And he uses a fist to stifle that weird sensation at his lips that almost succumbed to a chuckle.

*****

Yoona scrambles for her phone while handling her ‘luggage’, trying her best to ignore the rising temperature in her cheeks. She refrains from muttering to herself, taking into account that her situation is embarrassing enough. She manages to press the correct number for speed dial (having assigned all her dormitory members to her number pad). Even before her unnie finishes saying her name

“Taeyeon Unnie where are you?!” there is a tremble of satirical laughter colouring the sentence (more at herself than everything else).

“Oh Yoona! I’ve been trying to get through to you for the past ten minutes!”

“what?” she breathes, only suddenly recalling that her phone line was occupied for that entire time. She almost scowls but maintains composure nevertheless. “The Miss Han needed some persuading.” Yoona sighs, hearing a similar sound echo her on the other end of the line. Taeyeon repeats her frustrated noise once again.

“I’ve been stuck here for almost twenty minutes now!”

“Stuck?”

“car accident.”

“What?! Are you alright?”

“No no no no”

“WHAT?! Where are you hurt?”

“I mean no it’s not me in the accident, the cars in front of me are though” Yoona makes a huge sigh in relief. “Anyway I’m sorry Yoona”

“No it’s not your fault I was on the phone” she shakes her head trying to get the stray thoughts out.

“Do you think you can get to the office yourself?”

“Think so” she eyes the cars coming into the street wearily. There is no sign of a taxi anywhere.  

***

Just as he turns around the bend at an intersection, he notices little dust sized sprinkles of water on his front screen. Distracted for long enough, he realises there are a set of traffic lights in front of him and has to come to a more abrupt break as compared to his usual smooth driving. He hears a weird sound of something rolling inside of his car beneath passenger seat next to him and hears the object knock itself to a stop. Upon looking, he finds an unfamiliar umbrella having rolled out into view.

From deduction of possibilities, he works out that it is what he thinks it is. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. He then glances at the time on his car media screen once again and closes his eye slowly for a moment looking as if a wave of intangible pain was passing through him.

Before he knows it, when the traffic light indicates that he is ready to go, he is already routing back to the coffee shop he had randomly found this morning. The droplets that are landing on his front window screen are increasing in size. His assumptions are confirmed as he approaches the kerb to find the parking spot still unoccupied. The girl is still clutching at her folders and bags while trying to shade her face from rain as if it were sunshine. He can tell she is struggling to keep everything in order.

As he parks smoothly into the spot, he watches her shake her head a little (as if to clear something) and squint to check the occupant of the car, only to find his still (though) emotionless (but intimidating) expression . She bows a little and continues to look past his car and into the direction of the street in which he had just come from. Upon seeing the expression on her face, there is a twitch at the corner of his lips, but he brushes it away, as usual. And lowers the window on the passenger side and decides to call out to her.

“Excuse me” it takes two seconds for it to sink into her mind that he was calling out to her. She points at herself. “yes you, hop on”

“No it’s alright. I can wait for a taxi.”

“It’s hard to get hold of one at this hour. Besides…” he reaches down and holds up her umbrella. The fact dawns on her.

She reaches her hand in to take it, but finds out that he is maintaining grip on her umbrella.

“Thank you”

“Where do you need to go?

“Oh?  Just to work”

“I’ll take you there” she hesitates, searching his eyes for something and finally decides to take the offer.

***

Yoona shifts uncomfortably in her seat, trying to clutch onto everything she tried to balance on her lap. It is a challenge with the amount of things she is handling, let alone the fact trying to keep her composure so that the stranger hopefully will not sense her distress. At first she was glad for her internal debate on whether to start explaining the story about Taeyeon to distract her and loosen the almost palpable tension. But when she feels his eyes on her for a moment, she grips her belongings tighter and swallows, deciding not to look into his direction no matter what.

“I have no idea where you work, so it would help if you at least indicate where we need to turn.” He says smoothly.

“oh…” she glances into his direction almost going unnoticed. “umm, turn right at the next set of lights” she looks at him nervously again. “please” she suddenly adds while internally cursing herself. What’s wrong with me today? She asks herself as if she would be able to yield an answer.

At the ‘please’ he turns to her and his eyebrow furrows a little, and he keeps his gaze long enough – for a driving man at least- as if studying her in that second or so. He focuses back onto the road in front of him before saying

“Alright.” Somehow, Yoona cannot figure out how, but that seemed to be a cue that loosens her internal tension. She releases the breath she was holding slowly in the awkward silence.

“I’m really sorry about this. My unnie was supposed to pick me up this morning but she ended up-“

“You mentioned her having the same car” Yoona is unable to figure out which she is more taken aback by – his sudden speech or the fact that he remembers - though it did just happen only a few moments ago, she reminds herself. In her little reverie, he surprises her yet again. “I said it would be alright. It is. I don’t like telling lies.”

And it is only half the truth – the way he omits the other half that he was supposed to be meeting a client. But Taecyeon, the manager for the other team could handle it and take it if he wants – it’s not like he cares anymore (unlike his usual competitive self), he is not staying in the company for long anyway, he is moving onto something better. And – he glances to the girl sitting in the passenger seat beside him - she doesn’t need to know anyway.

They rest at another interval of silence after she points him to turn left at an intersection. She glances at the coffee cup in its placeholder, remembering where he had purchased it from, she decides to comment.

“That café is different from others. It’s special.”

“I don’t see any difference.” He says bluntly, eyes still on the road.

“Other than the special dollop of vanilla cream on top of their mocha, and the really really nice café owners,  they have a special tradition, haven’t you heard of it?”

“I’m a busy person. I don’t waste time on anything not worth my effort.” She looks at him almost sympathetically. How sad. She does not realise that she had already made assumptions about him as a person since concluding that there is a no nonsense attitude and what he just said kind of confirms this. But she decides to continue explaining, undeterred. Hoping (though a little doubtful it will ever happen) that one day he will maybe take the time to notice one of these enjoyable details in life. Instead of preaching him on how there are many intricacies in life one may enjoy, she goes straight to the point

“I think you may have missed the little box of cards next to the pickup counter.”

“What box?” 

“The cards are little inspirational quotes or messages written by the customers, so that it is passed on to others” she smiles proudly.

“If you make it sound so appealing, where’s yours?” It is only now that Yoona realises her mistake she gasps.

“I was busy on the phone with a client….” Changmin raises his eyebrows waiting for her to finish the sentence. “I think… I didn’t pick up my order.” She mumbles quickly, praying he does not catch it but she catches the amusement on the edge of his lips which turns into a smirk.

“So you work…” he starts.

“event organising…” he waits for her to elaborate. “wedding planning”

There is an expression on his face that she cannot quite catch – not that she could with any of his previous ones. Is it satire?

“Oh.” He simply says after a slight pause, then nods. She hates the reaction and tries to defend herself.

“I know it might sound naïve, but don’t you just find making a couples dream come true so sat-“ she decides to drop it, half way through her almost dreamy sentence.

“I didn’t say anything”

“But…” she thinks over it and decides against explaining further. He would not get it anyway(sadly). “Don’t worry. You?”

“Business.” One word answer. Perhaps the business people are not social butterflies when they are not facing clients. Once again the atmosphere is quiet.

***

He turns into the car park, eyes lingering on the buildings that form the complex of her company when he hears her collecting her clamour of stuff.  A part of him waits for her expression of gratitude, expecting it to happen. She seems that type of person. It is a specialty he has - being able to read not only clients in a short time to know how to approach them but also people in general to know if they mean any harm.  It is a developed skill from many years of experience in business.

But what he hears next surprises him. Usually he would categorise it as nosy but somehow this girl made an exception – like she generally meant well,

“You know even if you are busy as a businessman, it’s bad to drink coffee on an empty stomach.” Maybe he forgot to compose his expression because she suddenly apologises (for the nth time) “I’m sorry I just saw you had no food with you.” Did I look offended? Changmin wonders in his head.

“I don’t have a habit of eating breakfast. It saves time.”

“It’s unhealthy.” She reaches into her handbag and produces a paper bag, putting it out in front of her for him to catch. He hesitates

“Don’t worry I don’t poison strangers. I’ll probably get in jail for that. Besides, I eat a lot she bites her lips and giggles embarrassedly like a few moments ago. “So I made two… just in case” he pulls his lips into a slight smile.

“Thank you” as he takes it.

“No, thank you” she says as she collects her handbag from the passenger seat while smiling at him. She avoids his eyes, looking outside the front screen. Missing a handle, she readjusts it on her hand.

“Bye” she waves awkwardly.

************************

And that's bye for now for us as well. 

Hi guys, I felt that if I don't upload something now, I won't be able to have any time in the upcoming weeks due to my study load in uni. 

Oh and is their meeting too clichéd or unreal? Coz it was based on an incident around 12 years ago where I hopped into the wrong car and buckled my seat belt after keyboard lessons. I thought it was my aunties car. But it was the parent of another student. So embarassing. Sorry if it is a bit weird.

But anyway

Thank you guys so much for reading as well as your support. 

That's it for now. Happy reading