OUR HEARTBEAT [BEOMJUN] ✅

ten

“I thought Arin was coming with us today,” Liz said as we pulled up outside the tutoring center on Monday afternoon.

“She’s meeting us here.”

Arin had explained to me that she didn’t want to show up at Yeonjun’s place of employment without a good reason. I wasn’t sure what good reason she’d come up with, but I’d learned long ago to just go along with Arin’s plans. Things turned out better that way.

This time, Yeonjun was at the front counter when Liz and I walked inside.

“Hey, Beomgyu, Liz,” he said.

Jake came out of the back room. “Hi, Liz. You ready to get to work?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

Jake laughed. “Well, too bad, kiddo. I get paid the big bucks to make you work.” His gaze slid to me. “Hey, nice job on the podcast Friday.”

I nearly choked on my own surprise. “Oh … you listened to that?”

“Yeah. You were funny.”

“See!” Liz said. “That’s what I tried to tell her, but he cried about how awful he was.”

“I did not cry.” My face got hot.

“Whined, whatever.”

She had me there. “Yes, there was lots of whining.”

“Well, I liked the podcast,” Jake said. Then he gestured toward the tables and led Liz away.

I bit my bottom lip and tried to avoid Yeonjun’s stare, which I could feel on me.

“You host the school podcast?” he asked.

“I know. I seem like the last person who should’ve been picked to be a host.”

“I didn’t say that.”

I occupied myself with the magazines on the table again. There were new ones, I noticed. “It was a job forced upon me.” I picked up one of the new ones, a fashion magazine, and showed it to Yeonjun. “This another hobby of yours?”

“No. Do you like fashion?”

I threw the magazine down and sank onto the chair. “Not really.” I opted for one of the three-year-old celebrity gossip magazines and began reading some articles. It was interesting going back in time for a bit. Some things seemed exactly the same and others were totally different.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat leafing through that magazine and wondering if Arin would ever show up. But when I looked up again, Yeonjun was typing into his phone. A picture was tucked into the clear case of his phone. My curiosity had me tossing the magazine back on the table and standing up to take a closer a look.

“Your family?” I asked. The photo showed Yeonjun with two adults, plus two older guys and a girl I guessed were his brothers and sister. They were all good-looking, with similar wide smiles.

“What?” he asked.

I pointed. “The picture.”

He flipped his phone over to look. “Oh. Yes. I like my family. Go figure.”

I smiled. That was sweet. “Me too. Most of the time.”

Yeonjun went back to typing something, and I was just about to ask him what had his attention when Sieun’s voice rang out over his phone’s tiny speaker, broadcasting the podcast.

I gasped and without hesitating, I lunged forward tried to steal the phone from Yeonjun. He held it out of my reach. Then my voice rang out from the speaker. I grabbed his arm and tried to pull the phone down. He laughed and twisted out of my hold.