Bella walked into her home and removed her white BT21 Converse shoes, placing them on the shoe rack and slipping on a pair of house slippers.
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It was coming up on six years now since she had lived in this house by herself. In the last two years, she had taken up residence in Hannam with Jake and the twins. Before that, she had spent close to four years with the Jeons at the condo in Cebu Business Park.
Looking around, she saw that the housekeeper she had hired to clean the place once a week had done a good job. Her home was listed on AirBnB and had a full calendar for the next three years. It had been rented out to a Korean couple whom she met while in Seoul. Their son was in Cebu, studying medicine. Because of the distance from the city, the couple had bought him a car as well.
Presently, Bella took a photo of her home and sent it to Jake on Line with the caption: Revisiting old haunts. She closed the app and opened a box full of Kimchi that the Korean couple had asked her to send their son. She went to the refrigerator and arranged them in the chiller. Once that was done, she took out the note that they had written their son and stuck it to the refrigerator door.
For a second, she debated on whether or not she should go up the stairs but eventually decided against it. Kim KyungWon, the Korean couple’s son, most likely had his stuff up there. She did not want to pry.
Taking one last look around, Bella took out her car keys and hopped into her Benz.
It was now a post-pandemic world. The coronavirus that hijacked the world in 2020 was a distant memory. Travel was deemed safe again and people had gone back to their daily lives before any of the virus mutations had even made a peep.
After arriving from Seoul yesterday, Bella had sent a message to one of her closest friends, JB. She had known him since she was in grade school and they had kept in touch through the years. Like her, he too was married with two children.
Bella had asked him if he was free to get coffee today and he replied saying that he was, adding that he would love to catch up.
They would be meeting in a Starbucks at the Oakridge Business Park in Banilad as it was close to his place of residence and the Jeon condo, where Bella stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Jeon.
Thirty minutes later, Bella parked the car and walked towards the Starbucks at Oakridge. Entering the coffee shop, she scanned the first floor and noticed that JB was not there. She checked her phone and only then did she notice that he had sent her a message five minutes ago, telling her that he had arrived and had taken a spot upstairs.
She approached the barista and ordered a Java Chip Froccino and a Pistachio dome, chuckling internally at the memory of Hobi's addiction to the dessert. Yes, to this very day, it was his favorite Starbucks fare.
