The Falling Petals...🌺

Return....

It was almost midnight when I got off at Busan airport. As soon as I was out of the immigration channel, I switched on my cell phone. And I called my mom before anybody else, like she wanted, to let her know that her son was back and was absolutely fine. She too was expecting my call, and that's why she couldn't sleep (mom's are like that). I spoke to her for a few minutes and bade her goodnight. Then I moved to the conveyor belt to pick my luggage.

At the exit gate, I booked a cab to Sasang-gu.

No, I wasn't heading towards her but to a hotel she had booked for me. WE learnt from our past mistakes that commuting between her home and far away hotel could be more than a little problematic. So why not book a hotel in Sasang-gu itself?

I was in the cab when a few SMSs made a sharp entry in my message box. All of them were from Dae. The topmost one read:

Ur hotel is booked. Gimme a call when you land.

I was very eager to talk to her now that I was, once again, in her country.....I mean our country. It's such a different feeling, returning to your beloved after a long time. Everything around you appears so lovely. Every beautiful thing brings a smile to your face. Every hour, the level of your anxiety increases as the time before you'll see each other decreases.

I called her up. Later, she told me what she did: Seeing her favorite name on the display of her phone after a so long, she held her hand to her heart, smiled, closed her eyes, thanked god, took a deep breath, opened her eyes and picked up the phone.

"H-i-i-iiiiiiiiii!" she jumped loudly on the ground.

"Haha....Helloooooooo!" I was happy to hear her crazy "hi", just like a kid.

"I am so so so happy you're back."

"So am I."

And we went crazy. Shouting. Laughing. Singing.....That was how happy we were.

I heard her , going merrily around her house, letting everybody know that I was back. In a round-robin fashion, each and every lady in the house talked to me.

"Let me talk to him too."

"Dad is sleeping, so maybe you will be talking to him tomorrow." she said.

Well, we kept talking till I reached my hotel. Of course, there was no reason why we shouldn't be doing that. Getting the directions from her, I explained them to the driver of my cab.

This time it was  some hotel near her home, which was my destination for the night. It was not that good a hotel, but she had booked it because most of the good hotels in the city were full as it was the vacation season and, more importantly, it was the nearest to her place.

Due to the network issue, the call kept being disconnected. I dialed her number again and again. Before giving out completely, the network played hide and seek on my mobile's screen for a while. I somehow managed to send her an SMS.

Wll call u once I reach hotel.;

To which she replied:

NO. CAL ME D MOMENT U R GNG 2 OPEN UR ROOM. DN'T FORGET.

Well, I did what she wanted. Half an hour later, as I was unlocking the door of my room in the hotel, I called her. We were back on the phone when I moved into the dark room.

"Ok, now on your right hand, there is a switchboard. The first one is the light," she said. And I wondered why she was instructing me.

The room was cold. The Ac was on and there was a beautiful fragrance in the room.

In the light of my cell phone's screen, I switched on the lights of the room and what came next was a sweet surprise.

"OH MY GOD!" 

In front of me was a giant bed with two bouquets of roses, along with a note on each of them. and they read- "Welcome back" and "I missed you so much."

Apart from this, there was a tissue paper peeking out from under the cushions. From a distance I could not read it, but I noticed the marron impression of her lips on it- a lovely advance gift of love which she left for me.

I read the note.

While you were gone, I realized how badly I need you for myself. I love you so much.

"I love you so much dear," was the sweet reaction of my melting heart. I inhaled the scent of her kiss on that tissue and kissed it. She heard me doing that. I wanted her to hear.

The next moment, someone knocked at my door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Bellboy," came the reply.

"Two minutes dear, there is some one at the door," I told Dae and opened the door.

"Sir, I have got water for you."

"OK."

He came in with a bottle of Bisleri. He kept it beside my bed and, from the corner of his eyes, he noticed all that was lying on it. Those flowers, that note. Maybe he saw  the kiss too. He smiled to himself for a fraction of a second and then returned to his formal demeaner. While going back, he noticed a half-filled glass covered with a lid, along with another bottle of water.

"Oh you have already got water."

"That's not mine. You can take it away," I said.

As i said that, I heard her voice from the cell-phone. she was shouting "Shillang! STOP HIM....Don't let him touch the glass...."

"STOP!" I shouted at the boy.

And hearing the intensity of that "STOP", he froze, just like a statue. As if, the next moment, he was about to trip a mine and I saved him. He looked at me curiously. Even I wasn't sure why she had asked me to do that. 

I told him, "I'm all good. You can leave."

Confused, he left the room.

Closing the door from inside, I asked her why she reacted that way. 

"I want you to discover that yourself," she said. She was calm agian.

While O was wondering what she meant, she asked me, "Aren't you thirsty?"

"Maybe," I said, removing the lid covering the glass and lifting it.

Then I heard her saying, "You can have the water which I left in your room."

I was about to take a sip when I realized that her sweet surprise were still coming. My heart was smiling with the delights it was receiving. There were patched of her lipstick on the circumference of that glass. Having sipped some of this water, she had left the rest for me. What a sweetheart!

"You are such a darling," I slowly sang, enjoying the water, drinking it exactly from the spot where she had pressed her lips.

Our conversation turned romantic and we kept talking of beautiful things for quite a long time.

I think it was around 2:00 AM when we finally separated. I made her sleep, after which I went and showered. The last shower I had taken was thirty hours back int he US.

Later that night, on my bed, surrounded by those beautiful roses, I wrote her a message.

Somehow those 45 days hv passed, bt this hiatus of few hrs to see u again is killin me. Good night Angel.