Magical Tea

Gone Like Smoke

Min Ki gave back the shopping bag to Maya from his knapsack. Maya turned away and walked slowly towards her house. She was about to enter the gate when she looked back at Min Ki who was looking at her with a poignant look in his chinky eyes. She called out to him, "be careful, alright?"

Min Ki grinned widely. "Don't worry, I will leave Umma a note, in case, I took so long to come back," Min Ki promised, before pedaling away from the house.

The next morning, Maya went to work with a heavy heart knowing she probably got lots of work to attend to today. She had just arrived when her boss suddenly came out of his office to look for her.

"Oh, there you are, Ms. Silvana. You are just the person I need. It's New Year's Eve this Friday. We got to hold our annual year-end celebration the day before that and hold another fund raising activity. We must launch our postponed project for community service next year, but, as you well know, half of the fund we gathered the year before was spent on our quick response to the crisis, the food packs and all that," her immediate boss and board of director for community projects of the company stated nonstop on their way to her own office beside his.

"Sir, should not we have planned all these much earlier? By this time most of our benefactors would have already spent their year-end savings on bonuses of employees and the like. Since we are still on high alert because of the new surge of cases caused by the Omicron variant, parties are still kind of prohibited. How about planning to hold it on Valentine's Day? You know, love month and all that. Also, we could not hold a big event yet because of the pandemic so let's invite a small exclusive group," Maya suggested.

"Okay! I will leave you to get in charge of all the committees necessary to get involved on this plan, alright?" Her superior replied. On his way out, he abruptly turned back towards her, remembering something he forgot to mention.

"By the way, Mr. Ash Guerrero mentioned you to me last night. He seemed quite taken by you. I might have or have not told him you are already married. Anyway, we need his company's cooperation to launch our project. I leave you to haggle with him for a special price for the contract. Also, it won't hurt if he chipped in on the fund raising, too," her boss said with a wink.

Maya scoffed when he finally left her alone. Way to go to selling your employee, Mr. Francois! Despite being sarcastic with her boss, she liked or at least respect the man's dedication to his job, though most of the time she balked at his method of achieving his goal.

Oh, well? This just mean I got lots of meetings to call for and attend to. Maya thought in resignation as she pushed the button to call her secretary to her office.

The entire morning was spent in a close meetings with the event organizer and the various committees involved in the previous fund raising activity they had. These people will in turn relay to their staff members the plan and by the end of the week, the event organizer must lay out the fund needed for whatever they planned to do as the highlight of the fund raising, including the expenses for the food and decorations and everything else they must spend on to make the activity proceed.

Once the budget requirement were finalized, they must present it to the finance committee and wait for its revision or approval, hoping for the latter. Hopefully they could start with the procurement of necessary materials, props and decorations for the performance or event a few weeks ahead of the scheduled activity. They only had more or less six weeks after the finalization of the budget to begin with all the preparations, including practicing for the performance. Their performers were all employees of the company, after all, who had mundane work to accomplish for the company other than just performing for special events like this.

Simultaneously, Maya needed to oversee the committee in charge of inviting people to the event. Thankfully, this would not be their first time of holding such an event. They already had the list of donors in the previous fund raising party. They could invite the same people again and gather their response within a week. Hopefully, all the invited agreed to come, so that it would not be necessary to call another batch of possible benefactors, just to come up with the maximum participants they could invite without violating health protocol.

It was past her lunchtime when Maya got the chance to look at her cellular phone and check her call notifications. She was alarmed to see numerous miscalls from Mina since nine o'clock in the morning. She immediately dialled Mina's number to return her call.

Mina quickly picked up the call and answered in an almost hysterical voice. "Beshy, Min Ki is gone," was Mina's first sentence which caused the beating of Maya's heart to accelerate.

"Gone? Where?" Was all Maya could think of asking.

"He left me a note just saying he is visiting a very special friend and that I should not worry because he will be back before New Year's Eve. He just needed to check out something very important and necessary for his future peace of mind," Mina relayed over the phone.

"What do you think he meant by that? And why haven't he told me about this very special person before? Is it a male or a female? How old is this person? Where does this person live and all the necessary information I need to be sure he is truly safe," Mina's words were rushing over Maya's head, tumbling one after another, Maya felt her head will burst from the information overload.

"Beshy, please try to calm down for the meantime. I cannot leave the office right now and go to you, but I am sure, Min Ki is fine. He is not the irresponsible type of boy. There must be an explanation why he needed to leave without telling you all that things you mentioned, but, let us trust that Min Ki knows what he is doing," Maya pacified Mina.

"What I worry the most is he did not carry that much change of clothing and he even left here his treasured antique teapot and cups," Mina continued.

"Beshy, just leave the teapot where it should be. Does Min Ki know where to find your spare house key?" Maya inquired carefully.

"Yes, he does. Actually it was him who found the perfect niche for it. He placed it inside a crevice of the night lamp attached to the door post outside our main door. Nobody would have thought to find it there. It is not even noticeable to anyone who might change the bulb," Mina divulged.

"That's good then. You never know he might come back home in the middle of the night tonight. So, try not to worry too much, okay?" Maya convinced Mina.

Mina finally cut the call feeling much better despite still worrying about Min Ki. Did Min Ki left very early in the morning or late last night? She wondered.

Maya was also left pondering over what Mina relayed. So Min Ki did leave to time travel. It was the only possible explanation why he was gone like smoke.