Again

Chapter 2 - Kiss On My List

HIM

Jeong Hyeok sat back on the couch in his rented suite. He arrived back in Seoul a little earlier than expected and the final design touches for his house was not yet done, so he was staying in this hotel suite for a month.

Taking his laptop, he opened up the folder to study the proposals of companies he would be meeting with in the next few days. As a venture capitalist, he has had numerous hits but also quite a few misses. He studies the paperwork provided by the companies but he knows that sometimes it comes down to the presentation and his gut feel on the business. Because of the losses he had to take though, he has learned to be more careful and put a structure to his decision making so that it wasn't all emotion.

Fortunately, that model seems to work because he's been having a good run for over five years and has resulted in net profits that would ensure he was comfortable for the rest of his life even if he quit now.

At that moment, however, he was distracted and couldn't get past the first two sentences of the company profile he was looking at. Sleep was elusive as he was still on a western timezone, he took the remote and turned on the huge television set to see what shows were on. He didn't watch a lot of tv shows, preferring to watch plays and movies, but there was not much to do at that time of night.

Jeong Hyeok selected channel 1 and then kept pressing the button up hoping to find something that will grab his interest. He went up to channel 35, which was showing movies 24/7 when he stopped because a familiar face piqued his interest.

Her.

She was wearing a traditional Hanbok and her hair styled like those in olden times. Her face bore very little makeup reminding him of when he used to see her at University. Her character in this movie seemed to be going through hard times as this royal princess was separated from her family, lost the love of her life and had to deal with assassination plots against her. In every scene, he felt the pain and loneliness that the character went through.

"She's really so good," he found himself speaking aloud. Once in awhile, his mind would wander to their earlier meeting. Their moment in the bathroom while waiting for the games to end was brief, but long enough for him to see that the years have been kind to her. There were barely any signs of aging in her face, but there was a maturity in her eyes that he hadn't seen there the last time he gazed into them.

"Stop staring. It's rude," she reprimanded.

"Sorry. If you don't mind, I just wanted to let you know that you look quite lovely tonight," Jeong Hyeok informed her.

"Thank you." Grudgingly, she told him, "That suit fits you well."

"What? I look stupid?"

"I said --" realising that he was joking, she rolled her eyes at him and kept her mouth shut. That brief moment of camaraderie was quickly wiped out as they remembered the reality... they weren't friends. "I think it should be safe to head out now."

They carefully stepped out and tried to listen to what the emcee was saying. Se-Ri was right. There was already a couple selected and they were now put in the spotlight. They commiserated with the couple but were glad it wasn't them.

Jeong Hyeok smiled. "I'll go. I'll just send a message to Tae-Soo that I took off early."

"You're not finishing the program?" Se-Ri frowned.

"I'm a bit exhausted. My speech is already done anyway," Jeong Hyeok mentioned. Giving her a quick wave, he started walking away. "It was nice seeing you, Yoon Se-Ri."

He didn't dare look back.

Because he knew, like in all those times before, if he looked into those eyes any second longer... he was going to fall all over again.