North - South

Homemade noodles

It was a typical house with two bedrooms. One bigger, one smaller, as what was expected from a man of his age was to get married and have children. Jeong Hyeok opened a closet, then another, his eyes studiously roving around as he tormented his chin. Rubbing his chin or pinching his lower lip were his usual coping gestures since when he was a child. A finger passed over a wooden surface he hadn't touched for years, leaving a cleaner trail.

Pyongyang, Koryo Hotel

The morning after her meeting weird Jeong Hyeok, Se-ri was laying in bed, it wasn't as if she had anything else to do. A big glass of cold water was on the nightstand: her breakfast, probably lunch too. Luckily, she had stuffed herself enough the night before.

The phone rang.

"Oh?"

"Mrs. Yoon? Someone is waiting for you in the hall."

Se-ri jumped to the shower, then slipped inside a business suit and rushed to the hall.

Ishhh, luck must have remembered of her. As obnoxious as he was, apparently weird Jeong Hyeok was someone who could actually help her. And when one was alone, one had to grab everything fate sent.

"Ri Jeong Hyeok ssi," Se-ri cast him her most charmant smile, "I'm so glad to see you again."

Jeong Hyeok thought that she really was a fraud, and not even a fraud of the best kind. Should I leave her here?

He looked her back, pinning his dark, deep eyes in hers to warn her to stop with that self-humiliating, fake flirting. But Se-ri held his stare, her lips curving into a hopeful warm smile, until he had to turn his head.

Tsk, you're still a man, anyway.

Should I leave her here?

The woman walked to the lift with all the grace the course of gait had taught her. Then, as soon as she was out of his sight, she ran, literally ran to her room to throw all her few belongings in the bag as if even the minutes had a fee in that hotel.

An accommodation, the Ministry was giving her an accommodation, wow!

Downstairs, Jeong Hyeok asked for the hotel bill.

"Wait," Se-ri stopped, her hand fumbling inside the bag, "I have to pay the hotel bill before leaving."

"The Ministry took care of it."

"The city has changed through the years, uh?" Se-ri kept staring outside the window during their taxi ride, looking at all the new, modern palaces. It wasn't as if she had had time to play the tourist.

"Don't look around like this, you look like a peasant."

"What? I'm not that thing!"

His head turning to the window, Jeong Hyeok conceded himself a small grin. That brat needed to be taken down a notch.

"Oh, jinjja?" she murmured as soon as he opened the door, much to herself than for her interlocutor to read. So, the Ministry's accommodation was Jeong Hyeok's place?

With a slow, meaningful and mean gesture, Jeong Hyeok opened his hand letting her bag fall on the floor with a loud thud. "If it's not of your liking, I can drive you back to your hotel room."

"What? No, I was just saying, it's... I'll be more than ok, thank... please thank the Ministry for me," she tried to keep her eyes as sweet as her tone to calm down the man. Isssh, how much more should have she endured?