What I Feared the Most

Chapter 2

When Wonho's food arrived, he looked sheepishly at Julia. "I didn't know you were coming, or I would have ordered some for you," he said.

"No problem," Julia said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a plastic container filled with rice and shredded beef. "I brought my own," she assured him.

Wonho nodded and opened his food. Julia scrunched up her nose. "Those clams don't smell right," Julia declared.

"They smell okay to me," Wonho answered, digging into his dish. Julia went to the kitchen and heated up her food. When she returned, Wonho looked at her food curiously.

"Is that Mexican food?" he asked, hoping to guess Julia's ambiguous ethnicity. For some reason, he was terribly curious about what her ethnicity she was, but he was afraid to ask for fear of coming off as racist.

"Yeah, it is," she confirmed. "Are you trying to figure out what kind of brown I am?" she asked with a wink.

Wonho's face reddened. "I was just curious," he said bashfully.

"Do you want to try my food?" she offered, passing her plate to Wonho. He tasted the beef with tomatoes, onions, and serrano peppers and nodded approvingly. He coughed a bit as the spice reached the back of his throat.

"Too spicy for you?" she asked, trying to suppress her laughter.

"I'm okay," he choked out as tears began to stream down his face. He ruefully admitted to himself that he had lost the second challenge of their brief acquaintance, the first being their sparring match.

They continued to eat in silence until Julia looked up from her plate and repeated, "Those clams really don't smell right. Are you sure they're safe to eat?"

"Yeah, they're fine," Wonho assured her. Julia merely shrugged.

When they had finished eating, Wonho sat wondering what the protocol was in these situations. Should he stay in the living room to keep her company or was he free to go about his life as if she weren't there. He had to admit that ignoring her presence was likely going to be impossible. Ever since she had arrived, he had noticed that she had brought the smell of the beach with her. It must be her perfume, but he had never smelled anything that so closely mirrored the scent of hot sand and salty water. Then there was her skin --- a toasty brown color that seemed to have deepened by recent sun exposure, as he noticed that her feet were a much lighter color. But he was getting off course. He mentally checked himself.

"This woman is your bodyguard," he scolded himself inwardly. "She's not here as eye candy for you." A part of him knew she was off-limits to him, but another part of him hoped to catch her eye. He wondered if she found him attractive. He was generally confident around women. It was a widely accepted fact that he had one of the most expertly sculpted bodies in K-pop. But there was no indication from Julia that she had taken notice of him at all. She was all business.

"As she should be," he told himself silently. "She's here to do her job, not fall in love with you," he continued his mental self-lecture.

"Um, I can get the guess room ready for you," Wonho said.

Julia shook her head. "No, I'll sleep on the couch," she assured him. It's important that I be a barrier to anyone trying to get to you. If I'm in a bedroom, I might not spot a potential break-in until it was too late," she explained. Wonho nodded solemnly. He went to the hall closet to get Julia some bedding. He began spreading it on the couch for her.